Application a11y certification (proposal)

Gary Cramblitt garycramblitt at comcast.net
Fri Mar 17 01:33:27 GMT 2006


On Thursday 16 March 2006 10:47, Henrik Nilsen Omma wrote:
> Hi List,
>
> It's time to start focusing on applications!
>
> Well, we still have some work to get the AT (assistive technology)
> applications like GOK, Gnopernicus and Orca working perfectly, but it is
> difficult (and in some cases pointless) to work on these tools in
> isolation, without involving the wider community of application authors.
>   I think doing so will help sharpen the AT tools as well.
>
> The first step in that process is to get the authors and users of
> standard applications to think about how well their applications work in
> this context. To encourage that I'm proposing a very simple
> rating/certification system that will give us a ball-park idea of where
> an application is situated in this respect.
>
> I've posted my ideas in the wiki here:
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Accessibility/Certification
>
> This is largely a brain-dump, so new ideas and feedback are very welcome!

Please excuse a KDE developer for jumping in here..

There is already a fairly detailed methodology for testing GNOME applications 
for accessibility here:

http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/testing/index.html

I wonder.  Is a *rating* system all that useful?  On the one hand, it might 
provide motivation for app authors to correct deficiencies.  OTOH, it might 
lead to bad feelings when the ratings are thought to be "unfair".

IMHO, what app authors need are 1) clear guidelines so they don't make 
mistakes in the first place, and 2) specific information for deficiencies in 
a form that makes it possible for the developers to address them.  The 
Examples you give are a start towards that, but you don't provide specific 
guidance on how testers should report deficiencies in detail and suggestions 
for correcting them.

-- 
Gary Cramblitt (aka PhantomsDad)



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