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Re: [orca-list] Important: Web accessibility survey for screen reader users, situation in South Africa

I actually get pretty possitive feedback on average these days when I mention accessiblity issues in general 
to webmasters, and others, e.g. more 
software devs than before.
Folks have a limited amount of time, and time is money, but I thinkwe are actuallly closer to getting more 
respect and attention than 3 or 4 years ago, 
so I do ask anyone can send inteligent respectful email when there's a problem to do so. 
Note I said inteligent and respectful, not timid. 
We may never reach critical mass to see all of our Linux accessibility dreams come true, but we sure won't if 
we don't try.
Be careful folks not to burn out and give up, ie. do what you can over the long haul as it will be one no 
matter what. Even windows users have 
accessiblity issues. 


-- 
     B.H.
   Registerd Linux User 521886


  Alex Midence wrote:
Tue, Jul 28, 2015 at 09:16:26AM -0500


Oh, I'm sure there are some obscure screen readers out there with tiny user communities on Windows and the 
like whom it would make sense to leave out by name.  However, with Orca, what makes it hard to accept is 
that it is THE Linux screen reader for GUI platforms.  There simply is no other.  If you are a blind or 
visually impaired person running Linux and have a desktop environment installed, you are running Orca as a 
screenreader and magnifier.  There is currently nothing else.  Yeah, there's Emacspeak and Speakup but, 
they don't do the same thing.  One self voices an editor and the other is for the console, not the desktop. 
 

Truth is, this highly regarded player in web accessibility has taken it into their head that our user 
community is numerically irrelevant.  People come to them for advice on making their web sites accessible.  
Unless something is done to change their perceptions, Orca will not be taken into consideration for anyone 
who is designing a website.  As long as Jaws, Window eyes, NVDA and the mobile accessibility users can 
navigate it, they will consider it a task complete from there end.  This means at-spi and Orca have to rely 
more heavily to web accessibility standards and do more hacks than all the others because they aren't being 
met half way.  Most unfortunate.

Alex M

-----Original Message-----
From: orca-list [mailto:orca-list-bounces gnome org] On Behalf Of Willem van der Walt
Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2015 2:56 AM
Cc: orca-list gnome org
Subject: Re: [orca-list] Important: Web accessibility survey for screen reader users, situation in South 
Africa

Hi,
I am afraid the situation in South Africa is no better than elsewhere.
People cannot afford the Windows/JAWS setup, but they seem convinced that they require it.
NVDA is gaining ground though.
I see a lot of this attitude as we are trying to bring a GNU/Linux-based note taker product to market.
"If it is not using Windows, it won't work in my environment." seem to be the main idea.
for those interested, look at http://www.sa-note.com

I also completed the survay under discussion, and simply do not accept the excuse of not listing all the 
screen readers available to simplefy matters.
The results would therefore be scued by design.
Kind regards, Willem



On Tue, 28 Jul 2015, _mallory wrote:


On Mon, Jul 27, 2015 at 02:53:20PM -0500, Alex Midence wrote:

Their devotion to Windows is due to a series of factors.  Here's my educated guess:


Also, many people get their first screen reader and possibly first 
computer as a combo in school, where Windows is often default. This is 
also why JAWS is still big, it was something an institution/company 
who wanted to hire blind people would just buy as part of the deal.

I'm sure what you get started with is a big influence: eventually 
you're most productive there, and you generally need some reason to 
switch.

So an employee of a client of ours had to do just that, because his 
company uses our software which includes a client written in GTK.
He's still most productive in Windows and I believe he's simply using 
a VM to run a *buntu so he can access the client in Orca.

_mallory
_______________________________________________
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orca-list gnome org
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca.
The manual is at 
http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html
The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out 
how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp

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_______________________________________________
orca-list mailing list
orca-list gnome org
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca.
The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html
The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to help at 
http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp

_______________________________________________
orca-list mailing list
orca-list gnome org
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca.
The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html
The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org
Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp
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