Steam Deck Hearing Accessibility Concept

[GitBerwocky]

I think Valve is onto something really special with the trackpads and haptics of the Deck. I want to see them implement an "audio tactility" mode for hearing impaired users. Basically, with both thumbs on the trackpads you can use them like joysticks, and they can rumble softly or loudly to indicate where noise is coming from. This could be huge for deaf users or users with hearing loss, because it's directly feeding them auditory information to their thumbs.

This feature could be as simple as just "stereo" rumble with the right and left trackpad rumbling depending on how close the noise is to the right or left, and as complicated as vibrating each part of the trackpad corresponding to where on the screen the noise is coming from, and even vibrating harder for footsteps specifically.

This isn't a very difficult idea to put in practice and it would make the steam deck the most accessible console ever for deaf users.