Re: My thoughts on fallback mode



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
--
Oracle
Peter Korn | Accessibility Principal
Phone: +1 650 5069522
500 Oracle Parkway | Redwood City, CA 94065

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