Re: Proposal: enable accessibility by default for GNOME

[Francesco Fumanti <francesco fumanti gmx net>]

Gerd Kohlberger wrote:
> Dylan McCall wrote:
> > "Mousetweaks requires Assistive Technologies."
> >
> > I used this as the first example in a little post I made regarding
> > courteous software.
> >
> > Let's pretend for a moment I am a disabled person who has trouble with
> > mouse buttons. I am trying to turn on a critical accessibility feature,
> > and I think I see light at the end of the tunnel.
> > ...
> > Nope, never mind. Instead, this program decides to tease me! It throws a
> > cryptic error message, telling me that it requires "assistive
> > technologies". It essentially orders me to give it these technologies,
> > and it refuses to do anything until I satisfy its demands. I can feel
> > the confused phone calls starting already!
> > In the layman's thoughts: Of course it "needs assistive technologies";
> > it /is/ an assistive technology! This error message is lazy, cruel and
> > unusual. It does not offer to enable assistive technologies, and it does
> > not elaborate on what the heck it means to begin with. It simply refuses
> > to work, leaving people to give up or phone their relatives. There is no
> > reason for this evil, either; the software here has complete access to
> > the necessary controls such that it should be able to transparently
> > enable "Assistive Technologies" without the end user needing to think
> > about it. At the least, it could have a button leading to the "Assistive
> > Technologies" preferences or a kind explanation of what "assistive
> > tecnologies" are if not the technology the user is trying to enable.
> >  
> Hi,
>
> just for the record, the dialog looks like this:
>
> ---
> Assistive Technology Support is Not Enabled
>
> Mousetweaks requires assistive technologies to be enabled
> in your session.
>
> To enable support for assistive technologies and restart
> your session, press "Enable and Log Out".
> ---
>
> I fully agree that such messages shouldn't appear in the first place. 
> Unfortunately this is the best we can do in the current situation.
>
> Gerd

The question probably is whether Assistive Technology Support can be 
considered enough mature and not pose any problem to users that do not 
need it.

I have added Willie Walker to the Cc'ed people; he might want to comment 
on this.

Cheers

Francesco