Fwd: [Lubuntu-desktop] Fwd: Which talk engine etc?

[Pia]

What John is asking for seems so obvious to us who are disabled that I 
forget normal people don't "get it".  That kind of request is like 
demanding that there be a specification first that monitors and video 
cards have to be supported or that we need mouse support.  The road map 
document would be simple.  We need:

Something that reads the screen verbally to blind or dyslexic people.

Something that allows for braille output for the blind.

Some kind of magnification system for the visually impaired.

Closed captioning tools and visual cues for the deaf.

special keyboard layouts and settings for the mobility impaired that will 
allow them to use toggle keys since they may not be able to hold down more 
than one key at once

Something to modify mouse behavior for the mobility impaired.

A dictation package that responds to voice commands as the interface for 
the mobility impaired.

meaningful icons for the dyslexic but alt tags or meaningful text on the 
icons for the visually impaired.

See, list done.  Most of this can be done just with settings in the 
existing desktop, others require programs.  Mentioning espeak was 
important because the solutions also have to be lean and so it doesn't 
make sense to evaluate heavier resource intensive apps.

Any other ideas?

Thanks,

Pia

On Thu, 26 May 2011, Phill Whiteside wrote:

> hiyas,
> 
> JM is a guy who does not pull punches, please do not take his using one word
> where people would use paragraphs to avoid hurting people's sensibilities
> wrongly. The lubuntu dev team IS really small. If accessibility would rather
> wait for 12.04 when you will all have things a little more settled, then
> that is fine by us. We can build in the accessibility hooks during the alpha
> stages right up to feature freeze for 12.04. The feature freeze is imminent
> for 11.10. Getting exceptions for such a major alteration may not be too
> good a thing to push for 11.10 in lubuntu. 11.10 is our 1st 'official'
> release and just the slight variances in iso building are taking time up.
> Please do not see any of this as lubuntu stepping back from our commitment
> to give, at least basic, accessibility whilst keeping in the extremely tight
> rules of RAM / CPU etc.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Phill.
> 
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Jonathan Marsden <jmarsden at fastmail.fm>
> Date: Wed, May 25, 2011 at 5:08 PM
> Subject: Re: [Lubuntu-desktop] Fwd: Which talk engine etc?
> To: lubuntu-desktop at lists.launchpad.net
> 
> 
> On 05/25/2011 05:32 AM, Phill Whiteside wrote:
> 
> > your thoughts on espeak for lubuntu?
> 
> Given lack of spec for what we want to do, if someone is working on
> speech output for Lubuntu, using espeak at least as a quick fix seems
> reasonable.
> 
> BUT this question in itself is "cart before the horse" symdrome!
> 
> First, get a spec for what "accessibility" we want to see (and have
> resources to implement) in Lubuntu 11.10 Oneiric.  *Then* discussion on
> what software to use, what integration work needs doing, etc. can start.
> 
> If the Ubuntu Accessibility team doesn't have a basic prioritized list
> of "things to implement so your OS is considered accessible", then, IMO,
> we should shelve accessibility features in Lubuntu for this cycle, and
> start up a blueprint for accessibility in Lubuntu Prolific Panda (or
> whatever it will be named!).
> 
> It's not as though we have a surplus of devs standing idle with no work
> for them to do in Oneiric :)
> 
> Jonathan
> 
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