Taking to the Skies: Making In-flight Entertainment More Accessible

When traveling by plane, it’s easy to point out in-flight features that are typically inaccessible to people who are blind or low vision, such as the entertainment screens located on the backs of airplane seats. We collaborated with Thales Aerospace, a leading technology, equipment, and service solutions supplier for major airlines and governments, to create a new accessible user interface for in-flight entertainment systems. 

What exactly is this accessible user interface? Currently the most progressive interface available for users who are blind or low vision, Thales Inflyt Experience features 13 intuitive gesture controls and audio enhancements, including text to speech and audio narration. The user interface also includes a signing avatar that translates entertainment into multiple languages, along with optimized user interface navigation, audio enhancement, audio descriptions, closed captions, full screen zoom, font adjustments, zoom magnifier, and accommodations for color blindness. 

“As a blind person who travels over 100,000 miles a year, it’s often hit and miss on whether the in-flight entertainment system even has any type of accessibility for non-visual usage,” said Greg Stilson, who participated in the interviews. “In the event I happen to be on a flight that does have a system with accessibility features, activating them independently is not an option and I am rarely, if ever, able to find a flight attendant who has been trained on activating these features.” 

Incorporating input from people who are blind or low vision, experts from Thales interviewed many of APH’s staff members to get their feedback on what types of technology they preferred and what they would like to see in an accessible in-flight entertainment system. Thales created many mock-ups and prototypes of the user interface, gathering feedback throughout the process. After they finished developing the user interface software, two of our experts visited Thales in California to test the user interface and provide more feedback. 

 The suite of in-flight entertainment accessibility solutions created by Thales won a Crystal Cabin Award for Best Customer Journey Experience. The Crystal Cabin Award is prestigious within the field of airplane cabin innovations and products as winning ideas become incredibly influential in the industry. Even being nominated for this award is considered a high honor. 

While this user interface is a significant step forward in in-flight entertainment accessibility, Thales isn’t done yet. They are continuing to use the input we provided as they develop a roadmap for future improvements and features. “Even though accessible features have been available on today’s mobile devices and consumer electronics for quite some time, we are only at the start of these in-flight systems being independently usable by someone who is blind or low vision,” said Greg. “I am personally excited to see continuing improvements to access of these systems so blind or low vision travelers can have the same entertainment options while flying as their sighted passengers.” 

Check out Thales Aerospace’s blog for a more in-depth look at the process they used to create the accessible user interface.