Re: GNOME A11y: where do we need to improve? (Want input by 25-Jan)

[Francesco Fumanti <francesco fumanti gmx net>]

Hello,

First of all, thanks for making this possible.

At 11:11 AM -0500 1/17/08, Willie Walker wrote:
> One of the most important things for us to do right now is identify
> where we need to improve.  This may result in positive things such as
> funding opportunities and the like.
>
> Over the coming week, please set aside some time to look at
> http://live.gnome.org/Accessibility/GetInvolved.  It contains a large
> list of stuff to do, but it represents a pretty complete list of things
> people have mentioned over the past few years.
>
> What I'd like you to do is look at the page with these things in mind:
>
> 1) If there is something missing from the list, please make a
> suggestion.  I'm looking for concrete ideas.  Things such as "we need to
> do more for people with hearing disabilities" are less likely to get
> addressed than specific tasks such as "develop close captioning software
> for x, y, z."  On the same front, something like "Be more researchy" is
> more of a section where specific research and advanced development
> topics should live.

I have added the "Improve efficiency of the GNOME desktop for 
mouse-only users" to the above mentioned wiki page. In fact, GNOME is 
lacking (or did I miss it?) an onscreen keyboard targeted 
specifically at people that have no difficulty to move the 
mouse/pointer (regardless of whether it is a standard mouse or some 
adaptive hardware like a headpointer), but are not able to use a 
hardware keyboard.

For users that have difficulties to use the mouse button, there is 
mousetweaks that should fill the gap. Unfortunately, I have not found 
any keyboard on linux as efficient as the commercial product that I 
am using on the other operating system:

There is dasher that is reputed to have a good prediction engine; but 
it seems to lack the possibilities to control the desktop.

There is gok, which seems to be rather targeted at users that can not 
efficiently use the pointer. It has word completion without word 
prediction. The keyboard is not resizable,...

Should dasher be enhanced, should the composer in gok be enhanced, or 
should a new project aimed at the mouse only users be started from 
scratch? I don't know.




By the way, the GetInvolved page mentions porting gok to python. Why the port?

Cheap Head Mice? The adaptive Headpointers that I know of, use 
special reference items weird by the user to track his movement. I 
wonder whether a simple camera (webcam) working without a reference 
item can be accurate enough to use it as headpointer. Does anybody 
have any experience with "reference-less" headpointing?

About writing drivers for headpointers: do you have any headpointers 
in mind? Some headpointers (usually the more expensive models) 
present themselves as a normal mouse to the computer and consequently 
should work with the mouse driver shipped by the operating: this has 
the advantage of not requiring a specific driver (and maybe the 
disadvantage of not being customizable).


Another point I am wondering about: Am I right when I think that 
there is a standard about making the computer accessible for users 
that can only use the keyboard!? If it is true, maybe that a standard 
for people that can only use the mouse (with and without buttons) 
could also be useful.




> 2) If you were someone who suggested one of the ideas, please help fill
> out the details. You obviously mentioned it because you thought it was
> important, so please make sure it is represented well on the page.

If anything is not clear in the "Improve efficiency of the GNOME 
desktop for mouse-only users" part of the GetInvolved page, please 
let me know and I will try to improve it.



> 3) Look at the list.  What are the top 5 to 10 things that need doing on
> the list, including stuff you may have added?  Write your top choices
> down.  Send them to me.

Unfortunately, I don't have much knowledge about the different 
solutions available for the various disabilities, and the state of 
these solutions. Consequently a top 10 list from my part would not 
make much sense.



> 3) Think about where you may be able to step up and help and your
> availability.

I could exchange my ideas with the developer, test what he 
produces,... (but I will not be able to do the coding)
About the availability: currently I am quite busy, but I hope it will 
be better in a few months.


Best regards.

Francesco