User friendly passenger interface including audio menuing for the

Abstract

Audio menuing for the visually impaired, closed captioning for the hearing impaired and graphical tab control user interface for an interactive flight entertainment system (IFES). With the preferred embodiment, passenger control handset (PCH) in Braille is utilized. Given inputs from the passenger through use of the PCH, the keystrokes are transmitted to a seat electronics unit (SEU) as keystroke signals and processed by a device driver. The device driver transmits the keystroke signals to the pre-existing user interface and to the present invention's audio menu module. For the audio menu module, the menu resource database makes available a file of various audio information corresponding to various passenger keystroke inputs. Once the appropriate passenger output information is retrieved from the menu resource database, the information is output to the passenger via a display device and a headset coupled to the SEU. A closed captioning capability is enabled when a passenger selects a closed captioning option icon on the screen of the display device. Once such selection is made, audio information is printed and displayed to the passenger on the screen of the display device. A touch screen user interface having graphical tab controls for paging is also provided.