Re: Forming an Accessibility Steering Committee

[Brian Cameron <Brian Cameron Sun COM>]

Willie:

> So...let's try to work out what we want the GNOME A11y WIKI to look 
> like.  I'll start with a proposal that we can twist/turn/modify.  :-)  I 
> think the first question to ask is "who are the typical visitors to the 
> site and what do they want to do?"  I'm going to guess it will be a mix 
> of mainly the following:
>
>   o End users wanting to know how to get going with a11y support

I'd say "End users and sysadmins who manage systems with users with a11y
needs".

>   o IT staff making decisions about whether or not they want GNOME
>   o Developers and future a11y developers wanting to know how they can
>     help the GNOME a11y project
>   o Developers wanting to know how they can test their stuff for
>     a11y and how to fix problems they run into

I'd say "testers interested in sharing test cases, or how to get
involved with helping with testing" would be another category.

Also, might be good to break down general legal issues into a separate
section, and to have a separate section for conferences, radio shows,
news appearances, etc.

> The top level page, http://live.gnome.org/Accessibility, will be our 
> face to the world.  It should be relatively short, clear, and easy to 
> navigate by our target visitors.  Much of this information is already 
> available; we just need to organize it and bring it up to date.  Here's 
> a potential skeletal outline, though it's not short and probably not clear:
>
>    [Logo] -- we really need a good logo.
>    o "A11y 101" (what is a11y?)
>    o GNOME A11y is for Real
>      o Impact of GNOME a11y around the world
>        - Testimonials
>        - Case studies (e.g., GNOME in Spain)
>      o Commonly used apps that provide compelling access
>        - Evolution, gedit, gnome-terminal, ...
>        - Firefox 3, Thunderbird, OOo, Pidgin, ...
>      o Organizations involved
>        - Sun, Mozilla Foundation, Ubuntu, OLPC(?), ...
>        - Steering committee (see below)
>    o Latest news: ...
>    o Active projects and current focus
>      - Orca, AT-SPI/DBus investigation, ...
>    o Future directions and ideas
>      - (achievable tangible projects)
>    o GNOME's built-in a11y:
>      - keynav, theming, AccessX, MouseTweaks, ...
>      - GOK, Dasher, Orca, ...
>      - A11y infrastructure
>        - AT-SPI, ATK, GAIL, GTK+, bridge(s), ...
>        - pyatspi
>        - gnome-speech, gnome-mag
>        - accerciser
>        - External extras: BrlTTY, ...
>    o For application/toolkit developers
>      - How to develop/test for a11y
>      - Matrix of a11y vs. application coverage
>      - Accessibility bugs sorted by priority/severity
>    o For a11y developers
>      - A11y projects for you to help with (see active and future above)
>      - Getting started with pyatspi (or whatever)
>      - Jumping off points to Orca, GOK, ... developer documentation
>    o For operating system distributions
>      - Dependency lists
>      - Short smoketest steps
>        - Accessible login
>        - Quick tests with AccessX, GOK, Dasher, Orca, ...
>      - Integration tips, tricks, and troubleshooting

This looks good, but it seems a bit overwhelming.  Perhaps it would be 
better if the main page just had links for the use cases you discussed
above, with the detail in the sub-pages?  For example, perhaps the main
page could look more simply like this:

 o Introduction to a11y
 o NEWS
 o Why you should consider a11y for your organization.
   (sub page could include testimonials, organizations already involved)
 o GNOME a11y for users
   (sub page could include information about the AT programs, keynav)
 o GNOME a11y for developers
   (sub page could include reference and programming documents)
 o GNOME a11y for testers
   (sub page could include test cases, how to get involved)
 o General a11y legal references
   (sub page could include info on Section 508 references, etc.)
 o Conferences, appearances on the news and radio, etc.
 o Contact info

Then we could organize the links into the subpages, and have a very
clear website for finding what you need.

> I'd propose that the 'doings' of the steering committee be held at 
> http://live.gnome.orca/Accessibility/SteeringCommittee.  It will contain 
> our charter (which we need to create), a member list, and meeting 
> agendas/minutes. Representation of the other work of the committee 
> probably should find its way into the rest of the WIKI.

Sounds reasonable.

Brian