Re: [Fwd: Re: GNOME 3 Info for Upcoming Fedora 15 feature @ Tom's Hardware]

[Brian Cameron <brian cameron oracle com>]

Dave:

> I got this answer from Adam, he asked a follow-on question:
> "   4. When I asked about devices, I meant screens (already using the
> Apple Magic Trackpad/Wacom Bamboo for simpler multi-touch testing). For
> instance, Canonical uses the Apple Magic Trackpad to develop uTouch, but
> a Dell XT2 to look at multi-touch from a UI design standpoint. Any
> suggestions for touch-screen devices (even at the dev/designer level,
> not the consumer level)? This is more for me to get on the same page as
> the devs/designers leading the work, no so much for this specific review
> - although I notice how 'big' onscreen elements have gotten, so I can't
> ignore the touchscreen angle entirely."
>
> What should I tell him? I don't know exactly what he's looking for.
>
> He also asked whether there's a gesture language in the pipelines, I
> said I didn't know.

Supporting sensible gestures is an area where the needs for touchscreen
support and accessibility overlap.  The iPhone "VoiceOver"
accessibility feature, for example, provides an impressive touchscreen
and text-to-speech solution that can be used by the blind.

I should think it would be useful if GNOME supported a mechanism to
associate a reasonable set of gestures with commands, much like
keybindings; then this would simply makes GNOME more accessible and
usable to new groups of people.

I have cc:ed the gnome-accessibility-list to see if anyone in the GNOME
a11y community knows of any interesting plans for GNOME 3.

Brian