Re: A spotlight on the need for basic reading and writing support in GNOME

["Steve Lee" <steve fullmeasure co uk>]

Hi Mats, It's great to see you here, bringing as you do, very
considerable experience. You have raised some great points that
highlight an important area that is missing and if implemented will
add to GNOMEs usefulness. I wonder if  reading support may also offer
some interesting 'curb cut' possibilities for being used in other
scenarios such as primary education and talking books.

I have a couple of quick thoughts before I retire.

1) I'm guessing the additions you suggest for Orca reading support
might be achievable in the $6K/6mo limits and we should look at
finding someone to do them.

2) We've just been discussing new magnification schmes using the
window manager and I wonder if magnification is useful for reading
support (in addition to highlighting). If so what are the
requirements?

3) Text-under cursor should be possible with accessible applications
that expose AT-SPI.

4) What are the minimal writing support that needs implementing?

Steve Lee

On 21/02/2008, mats lundalv vgregion se <mats lundalv vgregion se> wrote:
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> My name is Mats Lundalv (employed at the DART AAC and AT centre, as well as
> at the Swedish Institute for Special Needs Education (SIT) in Goteborg,
> Sweden). I'm a new voice in this forum, but have been encouraged by Steeve
> Lee and David Bolter to post my thoughts here, following from the
> discussions in the Oatsoft email forum.
>
> My main reason for writing now is to advocate for putting the spotlight more
> on one or more of all the good things that are found – and possibly a bit
> hidden – among all the good things down in the
> http://live.gnome.org/Accessibility/GetInvolved listing. I
> would like to see them among the high priority tasks.
>
> The background is a survey we did at SIT comparing the accessibility and AT
> support situation for the WinXP, MaxOSX and Ubuntu-GNU/Linux platforms. We
> found that the big problem with the GNU/Linux environment is its total lack
> of proper support for the largest groups of users with accessibility
> problems - that is; users in need of basic reading and writing support
> (other than users with pure visual impairments)!
>
>
>
>
> This is the reason why we cannot currently recommend the free and open
> source platforms for schools from an inclusion and accessibility point of
> view, as students with reading/writing and learning disabilities - ranging
> between 5-15 % of the students in different educational environments - are
> left without proper assistive support.
>
> If, on the other hand, these needs were reasonably well supported in the
> basic GNOME - GNU/Linux environment, this would immediately make it a very
> attractive alternative for the educational areas. This is a strategic issue
> for the wider acceptance of the free software alternatives for the
> educational systems – and in general.
>
> I would really like to challenge this forum to consider ways to start
> addressing this problem now, rather than leaving it further down on the wish
> list for another round.
>
> The question is where and how to start of course. A few points:
>
> Proper tts support for these needs is the fundamental thing. This could
> either be taken on as a separate project, based on existing tools for
> Windows – as indicated in the "Dyslexia and Learning Disabilities" point in
> the list etc.
> Another idea would be to look at the possibility of building on all the good
> functionality of Orca and refurnish that for providing basic reading and
> writing support. I'd like to see your views on that approach. An indication
> of what's needed and what Orca has to offer, and would additionally need:
>
> Needed:
> In Orca
> Basic settings:
> Options to shut the speech up and                         - no – context
> info reading etc cannot be disabled
>  just provide the support needed                             as far as I can
> see
> Keyboard input echoing: ...                                 - basically
> supported ...
> key-by-key on/off                                                       -
> yes
> word-by-word on/off                                                  - yes
> sentence-by-sentence – after
> punctuation/new line on/off                                       - no
> Reading tools: ...
> Key_command_controlled: ...
> whole text (with reading cursor)                                 - yes
> (cursor?)
> line-by-line (with reading cursor)                               - yes
> word-by-word (with reading cursor)                          - yes
> sentence-by-sentence (reading cursor)                    - no
>
> GUI-based: ...
> ... above reading tools through
> a reading toolbar                                                          -
> no
> ... + read highlighted text ...
> by double-clicking word                                               - no
> by copying to clipboard                                                - no
>
> More demanding GUI-based additions:
> read text under mouse cursor – in menus and dialogues, in web pages
> (primarily) and other text content (as far as possible)... (on/off by key
> command)
>
> That's a picture of the tts needs and current support by Orca. Would it be
> possible and attractive to consider this for the Orca team: Either a special
> slimmed-down and complemented Orca version, or starting a complemented Orca
> in an alternative reading/writing support mode. I think I would prefer the
> later option if feasible, as it could allow for more options to support
> users with multiple impairments.
>
> Looking forward with some curiosity to your reactions to these issues.
> Unfortunately I cannot personally offer any help with coding in addition to
> ideas, functional specs contributions and follow-up testing and feedback.
>
> I will be keen continue to do all I can to promote support of different
> kinds for the accessibility and AT work on the free software platforms –
> within my professional environments. There's a lot left to do to raise
> awareness there.
>
>
>
>
> There's a lot more to be said about other issues related to the one I've
> concentrated on here – like wordlist/prediction support, higher quality
> speech options, the lack of a DAISY Player and state of the art OCR etc, but
> I'll stop my too lengthy writing here.
>
>
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Mats
> Mats Lundälv
> DART, reg.hab., Drottning Silvias barn- och ungdomssjukhus,
> SU
> och
> Specialpedagogiska institutet
> Kruthusgatan 17, SE-411 04 Göteborg, Sweden
> www.dart-gbg.org ,  www.sit.se
> tel: +46 (0)31 7398093,   mobil:+46 (0)705 298093,
> fax: +46 (0)31 7398090
> E-post: mats lundalv vgregion se eller mats lundalv sit se
>
> _______________________________________________
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>  gnome-accessibility-list gnome org
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>
>


-- 
Steve Lee
--
Jambu - Alternative Access to Computers
www.fullmeasure.co.uk