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Open Source Accessibility
tbray writes "The strongest push-back against Massachusetts' effort to institute open, non-proprietary document formats has come from the accessibility community, who claim that Open-Source desktop software lags behind Windows; and thus that a transition to Open Document will amount to discrimination against the blind and those with other disabilities. This is serious stuff. Peter Korn, who's an Accessibility Architect at Sun, has written a massive piece that provides a general introduction to the subject, a discussion of how Open Source is doing on the the accessibility front (things could be worse, but they could be a lot better), and finally, a detailed look at the (interesting) history and (uncertain) future of these issues in Massachusetts. Anyone in Open Source who thinks they can ignore accessibility issues is probably wrong. Getting any younger? Eyes as good as they used to be? This is everybody's issue."
I'm not an expert (as a matter of fact, I'm not even qualified to be called ignorant on the subject), but what can we do to make things better? Surely this is not an insurmountable problem and given the rather substantial savings for government institutions (ignoring the lobbying payola), you would think the people with the purse strings would have an interest in this answer as well.
Light grey text on a white background with salmon-colored links. That's just great on the ol' eyes!
and for the remainder of people, OpenOffice.org will work just as well under Windows for the folks that need the Accesibility tools, until Linux catches up (not long)
(It's never too late to join the Renaissance)
TFA actually has considerable praise for open source's accessibility in itself:
Another important question is the extent to which the Open Document file format itself supports or fails to support accessibility. This comes up for things like storing the alternate text tag for an image, or noting the relationships of labels with the objects they label in on-line forms. While a thorough examination of the file format specifically for these issues still needs to be done, much of ODF is based on standard web technologies like SMIL for audio and multimedia, and SVG for vector graphics, which have and continue to be vetted by the World Wide Web Accessibility Initiative processes. We also know that two of the existing applications that currently read/write ODF can export Tagged PDF files in support of PDF accessibility, and Adobe has already conducted some tests to verify that accessibility across that translation is preserved (and thus must exist in the original ODF file). Finally, at this very moment the OASIS Technical Committee that created ODF is looking into forming a specific subcommittee to examine ODF for just these accessibility issues and address any shortcomings found.
This is in stark contrast to proprietary file formats like those used by Microsoft Office. Those formats are totally opaque, with no peer review of accessibility issues possible. Thus we cannot objectively tell how well the Microsoft Office file format supports accessibility, or say whether it does a better or worse job than ODF.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Some were incensed at the American's with Disabilties Act (ADA) when it was passed, wondering why they had to go through all this trouble to accomodate a tiny fraction of the population. But the disabled population is not that small and it grows larger every year due to various factors most people don't think about or recognize.
Before getting back into computing, I spent 8 years in social services, working with the autistic and developmentally disabled. You don't realize what challenges there are to everyday living until you see how hard it is for anyone with any type of disability to do the simple tasks we "normals" take for granted.
Ultimately MA is going to have to decide whether it can afford to turn its back on a small slice of its populace or continue the process of inclusion. I'm hoping for the latter, since within the disabled spectrum, there are plenty of people still capable of working and being productive members of society.
Even if I lost the use of my legs, I could still program...
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
[...] the accessibility community, who claim that Open-Source desktop software lags behind Windows; and thus that a transition to Open Document will amount to discrimination against the blind and those with other disabilities.
How on earth can an open-source document format be a discrimination against the blind and/or handicapped?
If it's a documented standard -- and it will be -- an open-source document format can actually be converted into other documented formats (ASCII text, ISO-8859-X text, CSV, RTF, HTML, etc, even sound waves through a vocal synthetizer) that are actually easier to use for blind users!!
Compare and contrast this with the plight of handicapped people who are now using proprietary document formats, created by proprietary applications under proprietary operating systems... and who find out, the hard way, that their applications do not work anymore with their Braille readers under the newest version of the operating system. Or that they have to go through countless hoops to convert the proprietary document into another proprietary format, that they have no way to check for accuracy and/or problems. Or that can be endlessly confused by the changes that each version of ____________ [insert application name here] intoduces in its already confusing GUI.
I worked for about a year and a half for a non-profit that was dedicated to improving the access of blind people to computer technology. Those were the days of DOS and BBS, a time many blind people remember as a true 'golden age', since most information was textual, and there was very little that could not be done with a simple Braille terminal emulator and/or speech synthetizer.
Windows changed all that, for the worst. I knew people who used to be good programmers despite their handicaps who found themselves out of a job. Others that found themselves increasingly locked-out of the Internet revolution because the www was increasingly becoming graphical.
And now, people attack Open Document on the basis that it creates discrimination against blind people? Come on, that is the most ridiculous argument I have heard in a long while. If anything, a truly universal, XML-based document format would be perfect for these users!
In the worst possible case, I will volunteer to write converters to make sure these new documents can be exported into proprietary apps. And I am not joking: this was actually one of the things I did at the non-profit I mentioned above.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Whenever an accessibility issue comes up, I have to remind everyone how it feels to operate a computer in accessibility mode. Turn on all the accessibility stuff you know about, then turn the monitor off and see how you do. We have blind people in our office that use computers with the monitor off -- until you've seen that in person, you can't understand how accessible computers /technology must be.
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I'm work for IBM as one of those 'accessibility experts' and am the module owner for accessibility in Firefox. IBM picked up the Firefox and Gecko accessibility work after AOL lost interest in anything Mozilla-related.
JAWS 7 in fact works with Firefox 1.5. Ask your friend to try that combination -- Firefox 1.5 RC 2 is avalable on mozilla.org. Your friend can also try Window-Eyes 5.5 with Firefox 1.5 -- it works great.
It took me since 2001 to get all of the APIs implemented that were required for Mozilla accessibility on Windows. We also had tons of keyboard, focus and UI issues to fix. Then there is the new stuff -- accessibility for JavaScript/DHTML/AJAX applications. Firefox 1.5 is the first browser to provide the ability for authors to make custom DHTML widgets accessible. See http://www.mozilla.org/access. So we're going beyond the status quo.
For any application with any kind of document viewer or editor application with its own engine, accessibility requires a lot of work in the code. After that it requires a great deal of cooperation from screen reader companies so that two complex systems interact correctly.
Aaron Leventhal
http://www.mozilla.org/access