Re: [Kde-accessibility] KDE Accessibility - sorry, off topic.

[Henrik Nilsen Omma <henrik ubuntu com>]

Chris Jones wrote:
> Keyboard are primarily used as text input devices.  Almost all other
> functions can be handled by the pointer input including the menus.  If
> the menus are too small a target to hit one possible work around would
> be to increase the font size.
>   

I think we should start looking at some interesting new solutions to 
these problems and work with the developers of the lower level code like 
X and the kernel.

For example, it would be great to have a configurable scanning system 
with hot-spots on the display/desktop. That way the interface could be 
navigated using switches in a more efficient way, without using an OSK. 
That might also involve a much-simplified desktop layout in kiosk mode. 
Vista has an interesting mouse alternative using speech recognition to 
zoom in on different parts of the screen. See demo: 
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20060808/vista-speech-recognition-screencast/

Also, someone using an OSK with very large buttons or in scanning mode 
might be better off without things like the gnome panel or even window 
decorations. If we make it easy to customise the OSK then they can set 
up a range of commonly used applications to be launched with macros (or 
someone can do it on their behalf). If the OSK is scriptable it can 'do 
the right thing' when other applications are active, such as position 
the application and itself sensibly on the screen.

Just thinking aloud -- the point is that we shouldn't get trapped in the 
way of thinking that a few tools have to cover every single use case in 
their default configuration. It should be possible to adapt both the 
tools and the environment to the individual.

- Henrik