[orca-list] Advocacy

[Christopher Moore <chris w1gm gmail com>]

Hello,
This may be the wrong list for this issue, but I'll start here and we 
can move it somewhere else if need be.

While orca and the accessibility infrastructure have made major strides, 
I'd like to see a stronger presence among the end users such as myself.  
Some of us have expressed a desire to help track down bugs and assist in 
program development.  Unfortunately, one of the major application 
debugging tools, accerciser, is not currently accessible with orca.  I 
suspect this is on a todo list and will be dealt with over time.

Another area where the end users can flex their collective muscle is 
advocacy.  Accessibility is in some sens like a Green initiative.  It 
all sounds good on paper, but in order for it to happen, the end users 
need to drive the effort until such a point as the prototype becomes 
reality.

As a starting point we could take a look at the applications supplied on 
the gnome desktop.  When I go into the applications menu (alt+f1), I 
find the following in the various submenus:
accessories  12
games 17
graphics 5
internet 11
office 7
other 1
system/admin 19 

So in total we have 65 applications which doesn't include gedit and 
other topics such as navigating the desktop, using nautulus, sound 
juicer, etc.

Suppose an en user were designated as an accessible point person for 
each of these applications/topics.  To raise the awareness level, each 
point person could produce either an audio demo or some other form of 
presentation demonstrating the degree of accessibility (or lack thereof) 
of the particular application.  I guess everybody has their own view of 
accessible, but included in the reports I'd like to see a table showing 
what applications features can be done by a sighted person and which can 
be accomplished using orca feedback alone.

I realize that what I am proposing is a major effort, but with proper 
planning and follow-through, it could result in a major win for 
accessibility.

Chris