Hi Shaun,...Folks who are deaf and also have a physical impairment that impacts their ability to type (e.g. only a single functioning "finger equivalent") need a visual indication of the AccessX status. This doesn't have to be accomplished as an indicator in a gnome-panel. In fact, Apple has leveraged their integration with video hardware to make a very snazzy visual indication of their equivalent of AccessX status - something one might do similarly with GNOME Shell. But... some means of visually indicating the AccessX status is definitely important for GNOME 3.0.I know the shell (at least in some iterations) has an accessibility indicator/menu, but I'm not sure what overlap there is between that menu and what AccessX shows. Could an accessibility expert tell us what specifically needs to be shown? Could you get us a screenshot of the kinds of notifications done in Mac OS X? (As an aside, I talked to a non-disabled user at the AEGIS conference who accidentally turned on one of the keyboard accessibility features, maybe by one of the keyboard shortcuts. He had no idea what was wrong, and didn't have a visual indicator because he hadn't added the AccessX applet to his panel. Integrating indicators, without relying on adding some random applet, is a big win for that kind of case.) I haven't tried a recent build of GNOME Shell (alas), so I can't speak to the quality and sufficiency of what is already there [as an aside, I would love to see the suggestion of having regular LiveCD builds of a distro with GNOME Shell realized!]. How much is/isn't shown gets us more into usability questions and optimal user interface discussions. But... on the topic of "what is needed" vs. "what is good" - your aside makes this quite clear. A minimum bit of info is *needed* for specific users (e.g. deaf StickyKeys users), but all users will benefit from knowing when they have turned StickyKeys on - particularly those who have done so inadvertently and are now wondering why their keyboard is "broken". You can see a video of Apple's OS X visual rendition of StickyKeys at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X45XjXLddAI Regards, Peter --
Peter Korn | Accessibility Principal Phone: +1 650 5069522 500 Oracle Parkway | Redwood City, CA 94065 Oracle is committed to developing practices and products that help protect the environment |