Some Proposed specs in your memo on Orca as default screen reader in GNOME 2.16.

James King j4415king at earthlink.net
Thu Jun 8 05:52:22 BST 2006



 Hi Henrik (and all AT List Members):

You wrote on 6/5/2006 in the Subject-mentioned memo:

> I'd also like to do [new specs] on:
>
>  * Even better accessibility boot:
>   The F5 menu should really be full screen, high contrast, and ideally 
> have voice feedback
>
>  * access.ubuntu.com -- A new section of the website with help and 
> information
>
 I  strongly agree with both of these subjects as high-priority specs for
Edgy 

 I am very happy to hear that there will be a new AT Assistance section in
the list of Forums.  That is what I needed when I first came to Ubuntu
looking for help.  All I could do then was ;post a plaintive cry on a
desktop forum, and hope for the best.  Even though I had posted on the
wrong forum, Ubuntu users in Belgium, Portugal, and elsewhere led me to the
AT List through a referral directly to you.  If I hadn't been that lucky,
I'd have given up entirely.  When the new forum is running, helpless new
users who can not get up, much less installed, will be able to figure out
where to go for help, even if they are more handicapped than I am (I
believe).


You recently wrote drafts of actual specs:

>  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Accessibility/Specs/compiz-mag
>  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Accessibility/Specs/CommonATConfig
>
I want to add my support as strongly as possible for both of these specs as
very high priority ones among the whole list of specs for Edgy. 
Implementing them would solve many of the problens that I encountered when
I originally tried to install the Dapper Beta LiveCD several weeks ago,  
It took me hours over several days to find the various pages needed to
configure the Themes, ScreenReader, and Gnopernicus Magnifier to the poiint
where I (foolishly) tried to install the LiveCD on my hard drive.  Because
of my visual impairment and the inaccessibility of the AT features duirng
install, I made a stupid mistake and melted down my entire system to
complete unbootability.believe this might not have happeded if I hadn't
felt so desparate to get done with the whole process, after the
frustrations of not being able to find, use, and apply to the HD the AT
profile I finally was able to choose for theme, screen-reader, and
magnifier.

Even today I still have not completed installing Dapper Beta by connecting
to the Internet.  I am still communicating with you via Microsoft XP,
ZoomText 8, Dragon Naturally Speaking Professional 8, and Microsoft Word
2003.  I have restored all this software and Dapper Beta to the point where
the meltdown occurred, but I'll wait to try to make a Linux connection to
the Internet next week through the HD install of the newly released LiveCD
Dapper.

I know you understand how many catch 22s, 99s, etc. there are for us who
are visually challenged because you are usiing the right examples and
scenarios for a wide range of impaired users, even though we are a small
minority of those who want to use Ubuntu.  I admired your defense of us
when it was proposed that our problems be given a lower priority in order
to move faster to helpt the "abled" majority.  (I also greatly admire Mike
Coulombe's courage in working with the AT in the last few days, so close to
the deadline for this cycle.)  Most of this stuff I've said above and below
may be superfluous technically, but I hope you can use it as philosophical
and political support to continue on the tracks you have laid out with high
priority on some fot he "big-picture" blockages that Edgy might overcome in
addition to squashing bugs in the existinig Dapper release.

In this context, I want to support the ideas in the spec in
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+spec/livecd-access -- accessed
through your memo of 6/7/06 on Edgy AT Specs.  

In that spec you write

>For Edgy we should expand the scope to include:

>> * Better provisions in the gfxboot menu for the visually impaired
>> * Ensure that administration tools run as sudo can communicate via AT-SPI
 >>* Test Ubiquity thuroughly for AT-SPI functionality
 >>* Allow acessibility profiles used during the live CD session to be
installed to the HD
 >>* integrate the new assistive technologies appearing in dapper, which
may include: Orca, SOK, compiz-mag, speech dispatcher, speakup and kttsd
 >>* Kubuntu and Xubuntu versions (with U/Edubuntu already being
established)

>From my viewpoint (impaired), all six of these are important.  However, the
first (gfxboot menu) and the fourth (allow liveCD profile to be installed
on HD) are much the most important to prevent the impaired user from being
totally frustrated and thus tempted to give up entirely on trying to
install Dapper (or Edgy) for the first time.  In my experience, these two
features are the "make-or-break" advances that should have top priority.

Of course, I have not tried yet to install the newly released version of
Dapper.  I will be trying to do that next week, if my health does not
relapse and my work allows the risk of another meltdown on my primary
Internet machine.  Even before I try, I want you and the Team/List to know
that Dapper Beta is a great leap forward from Breezy.  My thanks to you all
for letting me try the Beta.  I'll let you know as soon as I get Released
Dapper installed.

Thanks again.

James






More information about the Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list