Re: Certification for GNOME apps

[Peter Korn <Peter Korn Sun COM>]

Alan Cox wrote:
> On Mer, 2005-07-13 at 16:27, Federico Mena Quintero wrote:
>
> > I don't have names for the certification levels yet.  They are something
> > like this:
> >
> > Level 0 - the app runs without doing idiotic things like taking over
> > your desktop.  It appears in the panel menus, and it installs its MIME
> > handlers.  Pretty much any X app can be made to conform to this.
>
> Should include basic accessibility at this level. If its not accessible
> its software that is excluding parts of the user base and potentially
> foundation members and thats just -wrong- for certification.

There are three fairly seperable things to do for accessibility.  It may make 
sense to split these out over one or two of these certification levels as 
well.  The accessibility bits are:

 a. keyboard accessibility - *everything* can be done only from the
    keyboard; no product feature requires a mouse

 b. full theme support - all of the GUI supports our themes, and specifically
    the accessibility themes: things get large, things get high contrast,
    focus indication is clear, etc.

 c. full support for ATK, and full interoperability with our assistive
    technologies GOK, Gnopernicus, and Dasher

We might make some reference to Section 508 and other accessibility standards, 
but we should be very careful in doing so - we don't ever want to imply that 
any particular GNOME certification level means "complies with Section 508" or 
anything other such standard - there are a great many specific tests that 
apply to those standards, and I suggest we don't wade into that with this effort.


Regards,

Peter Korn
Sun Accessibility team