Good morning!

I was instructed that this was the best venue to make this request.

My name is Bethany- I am a program assistant in the technical services department at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO). The role of our department is to promote the use of adaptive technology and toys with children and youth with special needs. We were incredibly excited to purchase a couple of your adaptive gaming controllers, and we now actually have one available for loan through our Adaptive Toy & Tech Resource Centre, so that families can trial it before deciding whether it is right for them.

Part of my job is to look at what our clients are capable of doing in terms of switch and/or joystick use, and seeing what games are actually playable. I am getting a lot of requests lately to look at adapting Fortnite and Minecraft, however we are not allowed to make ongoing purchases (e.g. purchasing an XBox Game Pass), which is needed to download Fortnite and many other games labelled as “free”.

This is where you come in. I know it’s a long shot, but I was wondering if you had any codes available to give free access to Xbox Game Pass for clinicians. This would only be used by us to test and then recommend games to clients, but would really make things easier when it comes to looking at what games can feasibly be played my our switch-using clients. I am finding that some games are impossible to play for our clients because newer video games need a combination of hits (e.g. up + A) to make a move, which is not possible for a lot of our clients. Right now we are limited to free games only, as making purchases is very slow in a hospital and I am unsure how happy the finance department will be with me asking for hospital funds for video games. :)

Thanks so much in advance for your consideration!

Bethany Gray

I wish I could upload an image. My suggestion is to change the colors for the application icons in the online Office 365 view. Sway and SharePoint, for example, are the same color with an S. Only the shape distinguishes the two. I have clicked on Sway when I wanted SharePoint on more than one occasion. Forms is also the same color and since the Forms/Sway icons are similar shape, that too is deceiving at times. One Drive and Outlook are next to one another and both blue but at least the icons are different enough (cloud and no letter for OneDrive) that I have so far been able to choose the one I want. I do have an image to share if it would be helpful. Thank you for reading my feedback.

Make windows headsets compatible with Xbox. I just bought a new Xbox so I can play the latest games on the Series X. But now I still need something better than my 1050 ti to run Microsoft Flyight simulator trough Xbox Gamepass.

Just make VR compatible with the Xbox. Only reason I bought the Xbox is so I don't have to buy a new computer/laptop. But now you tell me I need to install this game on pc and try to run it with my 1050 ti?

What's so hard about making virtual reality compatible with my more powerfull Xbox? I thought the Series X was the best place to play Gamepass.. guess I still need a 3000$ pc to run VR.

As a leading gaming platform it should be your responsibility to lead in latest hardware and technologisch that improve the game experience. Why ignore it?

Although I have very limited experience using Hyper-V, my understanding is that audio is not available when connecting to a virtual machine using Hyper-V Manager. I have read about an Enhanced Session Mode, but this must be manually enabled on Windows Server and it does not appear to pass audio back to the host machine unless RDP is enabled in the Windows virtual machine.

Can you see the problem here? How is a totally blind person supposed to independently configure a virtual machine if audio cannot be used until a setting in the virtual machine itself is enabled? If a blind person wants to use Linux in Hyper-V, my understanding is that there is no audio support at all. This issue should be resolved by automatically allowing audio from virtual machines to be passed back to the host machine if a screen reader such as Narrator is running when accessing the virtual machine via Hyper-V Manager.

This also ties in nicely with an idea I posted a while ago concerning enabling audio when Narrator starts and always checking to ensure it is enabled, not muted, or too low to hear. My understanding is that this was partially implemented in one of the SAC versions of Windows Server by automatically enabling the audio service when Narrator runs for the first time, but this should roll out to all versions of Windows. Audio is essential for most screen reader users, so it makes sense that Narrator should do the work to ensure someone can hear the audio, regardless of what the last person using the system may have been doing. This would also be extremely helpful for a blind Windows Server administrator, so please find a way to make this happen ASAP. This is yet another idea to make Windows more accessible for blind IT professionals. The work that has been done on the Windows installer and safe mode is an excellent start, but there is much more that could and should be done, including this idea, fixing Narrator support in the Advanced Startup Options menu, and better Narrator support for remote control scenarios.

A growing number of software developers such as Postbox Inc and Mailbird are copying Apple's ultra thin scroll bars with no left / right & up / down arrows when creating applications for Windows.

This recent trend has introduced the issue of scroll bar inaccessibility to Windows users, making life increasingly difficult for people like myself who has arm control difficulties. Should this trend continue, many disabled people will face an increasingly limited choice of software due to companies who place "innovative looks" over accessibility.

Please Microsoft, introduce an Ease of Access option that forces ANY Windows application to have conventional scroll bars with left / right & up / down arrows, plus the option of changing the scroll bar's width (currently only possible by editing the Registry) and applying colour schemes to the components of the scroll bar. The chosen configuration should override the scroll bar coded into any application.

I feel sad that I have to make this suggestion as it has been made necessary only because of a trend started by Apple's Mac OS X 7, which has now been adopted by companies producing Windows software in an effort to be "innovative" in the design of their graphical user interface. No decline in accessibility, and telling disabled people to buy somebody else's software (as happened to me after an updated application that I own became inaccessible) is acceptable in 2020, and only Microsoft can stop this worrying trend by creating a new "Scroll Bar" category in Ease of Access.

The reason many did not switch to Google Chrome was due to the way it handles file downloading. Instead of a simple Open or Save As, the way Edge has always handles it, you have to go through several steps, and all of the extra time it takes ads up. But you decided to borrow this method from Google to reduce functionality for Edge users in a HUGE way. There are so many complaints about this but you haven’t changed it back. Don’t borrow the bad functioning of Google Chrome...that just makes no sense. Here’s one of the message strings: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftedge/forum/all/edge-chromium-download-file-open-vs-save-option/cc17d303-e77a-47cb-969f-a401bc569d97

Dear Microsoft,

I have some suggestions on improving the accessibility on Xbox One for blind and visually impaired gamers. I am a visually impaired gamer. I like to play Final Fantasy especially Final Fantasy XIII Trilogy. For Final Fantasy XIII-2, I have noticed that the background game music is very loud, and it is sometimes difficult for me to hear the character’s footsteps, depending on the music and the surface the character is navigating on. I strongly suggest for you to add an accessibility feature on the Xbox one console to have the ability to reduce background game music, so it is much easier for a blind and visually impaired gamer to hear the sounds of the game, like the character’s footsteps.

I have been trying to complete Final Fantasy XIII Trilogy for a while. I have beaten Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy XIII-2, but I have not beaten Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. This is because Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII is timed and the navigation is very difficult especially for a blind and visually impaired gamer. I strongly suggest to add an accessibility feature on the Xbox One console to have the Xbox One automatically navigate the character in complicated games like Final Fantasy X / X-2 HD Remaster, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, and Final Fantasy XV. During battles the blind or visually impaired gamer can do the battles without the Xbox One doing the battles for them. Having the Xbox One being able to navigate the character automatically in complicated games like Final Fantasy X / X-2 HD Remaster, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, and Final Fantasy XV is not only going to help me, but it is also going to help other blind and visually impaired gamers. I have been trying to find someone to help me navigate Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII for the past four years, and I have not had any luck finding somebody to help me navigate in Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. If you can please add the automatically controlling the Xbox One accessibility feature to navigate the character in complicated games, I would greatly appreciate it.

I use Narrator to navigate the Xbox One. However, the games I play, which are Final Fantasy XIII Trilogy, Narrator does not read any text in Final Fantasy XIII Trilogy. This obviously would make it much harder for a blind and visually impaired person to play Final Fantasy XIII Trilogy. My suggestion is to have a way for the Xbox One to read text in games that Narrator cannot read text in certain games, like Final Fantasy XIII Trilogy. This is not going to help me, but it is also going to help other blind and visually impaired gamers.

My last suggestion is to have a dictionary manager for Narrator on the Xbox One. What I mean by dictionary manager is if Narrator cannot pronounce a certain word, you can type how the word is actually spelled and then you can type how the word is pronounced. This will help Narrator read text better on the Xbox One. If you can please add all of my suggestions to the Xbox One at your earliest convenience, I would really appreciate it.

Ameen