RFP - Guadalinex a11y edition

[Mario <mariocs gmail com>]

Hello everybody,

As you probably know, we're making an incredible effort to improve the accessibility in GNOME because it's the desktop used in the customized GNU/Linux distribution called Guadalinex which is used in Andalusia (Spain).

In fact, there are three different flavours of Guadalinex: Guadalinex as such is a standard distribution aimed at home users. Guadalinex-edu is intended to be used in schools and by students. Finally there is the Guadalinex Guadalinfo version used in our telecentres spread out in Andalusia.

Currently we are planning to create a special edition that would run from a USB key with all the a11y features enabled by default. Its main use is intended for users who want to make use of a computer where a11y software is not installed. Then the user could plug the USB, reboot the computer and can use the computer in a live session, of course ifspecial hardware is not needed.

Don't forget that we're not only working towards blind people, so we'd need to extend Vinux and Tiflolinux capabilities.

We ask you for help about how this a11y edition should be, look and feel. Specially, we are interested in:

1. How should the environment be at startup in order to be the most inclusive?

2. How should be enabled/disabled the different options? by keystrokes? by mouse movements? by voice orders?

3. How should be the user informed of the different options? audio? audio+text?

4. Anything else you think is important to include

We'd love if all the development that will stem from this a11y edition could be encapsulated somehow so that it could be re-used to derive a11y editions from other GNU/Linux distributions (Ubuntu, Debian, ...).

Any comment or suggestion you can make will be greatly appreciated and included in our formal RFP for bidders.

The planned release date for this a11y edition is november 2010. In order to fulfil our schedule only comments/suggestions received by June 16th will taken into account for the bid.

Just for your information, the current developments that we're funding or planning to fund and that will be included in this a11y edition, along with all other GNOME 3.0 a11y applications, are:

1. Improvements to ORCA [1]

2. Improvements to OCRFeeder [2]

3. Improvements to Evince [3]

4. Improvements to dots [4]

5. Improvements to Caribou [5]

6. Improvements to Eviacam [6]

7. Creation of a spanish equivalent of gnome-voice-control

8. Improvements to Webkitgtk+ [7]

9. Improvements to Cally and GNOME Shell [8]

10. Improvements to mousetweaks [9]

Please, feel free to redistribute this email to other lists/persons who can give their opinion or to open a thread in the GNOME website to discuss this topic.

Mario Cámara.

Consorcio Fernando de los Ríos.

Links

[1] http://live.gnome.org/Orca

[2] http://live.gnome.org/OCRFeeder

[3] http://projects.gnome.org/evince/

[4] http://www.mail-archive.com/gnome-accessibility-list gnome org/msg03816.html

[5] http://live.gnome.org/Caribou

[6] http://eviacam.sourceforge.net/eviacam.php

[7] http://webkitgtk.org/

[8] http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell

[9] http://live.gnome.org/Mousetweaks/Home