Re: [orca-list] Feedback for Microsoft [was "Re: favorite linux distros."]

[Jason White <jason jasonjgw net>]

Alex Midence <alex midence gmail com> wrote:
> Don't sweat it. It certainly didn't bother me. It is absolutely not the very
> first and probably will not be the very last off-topic message to be posted
> to this list. 

True. Having now used Linux (console, GNOME etc.), Microsoft Winodws 7 with
MS-Office, OS X 10.10, Android 4.3 and iOS 8, in other words most of the major
operating systems currently in use, I am in  a position to make comparisons.

I think GNOME 3 accessibility (and, in addition, Firefox accessibility with
Orca, thanks to Joanie's excellent work) have imrpoved considerably in the
past year. Still needed, though, is rigorous quality control before releases -
the bug count remains unacceptably high, and proprietary operating systems
have the edge in relation to GUI accessibility. Linux is unsurpassed at the
console, however, and in environments such as Emacs. If several large Linux
distributions were to commit resources and funding to accessibility-related
work, I think we could see the rough edges smoothed rather rapidly.
Unfortunately, regulations in this area don't seem to be creating an incentive
for them to combine and devote larger resources to this area. Alternatively,
if we had a sizable community of people who found bugs, fixed them and
submitted patches, improvements would occur more rapidly, but again there
would be the problem of quality control prior to release. Users don't welcome
regressions.

Resources aren't always decisive, of course. I expected Microsoft Winodws to
be much more reliable than it has so far proven to be, given the large amounts
of money involved and the influence of regulations in a number of countries,
quite aside from Microsoft's long-standing involvement in accessibility. I may
simply have been unlucky enough to encounter certain bugs, but on the other
hand, I haven't done anything out of the ordinary in that environment.

Apple Accessibility tends to be reliably and consistently implemented, for the
most part, but for various reasons I'm not gravitating to a Mac as my primary
enviornment at home or at work.