Slashdot Mirror
FOSS and Disabled Communities Out of Touch
Yinepuhotep writes "Newsforge has a thought-provoking article on the lack of communication between the FOSS community and disabled persons." From the article: "How can the FOSS community address the issues of the disabled? The most urgent task is to improve documentation. Perhaps you can make it a personal goal to be able to configure your favorite FOSS tool blindfolded while someone reads your improved instructions aloud. Your local LUG could organize ways to connect volunteers to assist disabled users with installations. Be sure to contact local disability rights groups to let them know what you're doing. They may also be able to provide more feedback about needs in your community."
This is definitely a challenge for all developers world wide. However, this is nothing new, or unique to FOSS, just an old problem approached from a new perspective.
As mentioned in the article, this leads back to an earlier Slashdot news post, on the Consistency/Efficiency debate.
I would be inclined to lean towards consistency myself, and side with the disabled folks, but how can you create new and exciting platforms while still being maintaining familiarity. If you ask me, the web is an excellent case study in creating exciting new products, while simultaneously establishing conventions.
Perhaps this article shouldn't be taken as a call to turn all of the FOSS software into retail clones, but to concentrate on bringing innovative features, while still maintaining a consistant and familiar interface.
Can a blind person install and configure windows, iis, SQL server, exchange, and active directory?
Once your favorite OSS tool is installed can a blind person use them?
How about other types of disabilities? How about if a person is blind and deaf? Or is missing both arms? Or is a quadrapeligic? How do we help them install and use linux?
It seems to me that you have to draw the line someplace. If somebody wants to put forth the effort then great but honestly why don't we concentrate on getting the documentation so that a reasonably intelligent non disabled person can use it first. Then we can worry about the blind.
In the mean time if a blind person wants to run linux please have them contact their local LUG, I am pretty sure somebody would step up to the plate. Another option might be to buy a pre-installed linux machine, lots of companies sell them.
evil is as evil does
... poke an OSS developer in the eyes today!
http://outcampaign.org/
I'm what the state calls "Visually Disabled". Some people would rather just say I'm retarded, or even "useless". All are terms I often hear, despite the fact that I was born normal with better then 20/20 eyesight.
Like it or not there is a large rift between the needs of the disabled and the people willing to take the extra time to address it. Disabled people, no matter the affliction, all have the same problem today: Only the people who need the extra interface flexibility are the ones interested in doing anything about it. And 99% of the time, they still cant because what they need is required to be able to build that very same system. Its a recursive dependency.
We need a better focus on software based voice systems. Speech recognition, and yes better generation, it all needs to be there and sound good and be fast doing it. And yes, sounding good matters. I always laugh when I hear (google for festival, flite, blind linux) people talk about "eye candy" or "improved frame rates". They dont matter, and its just useless junk to me and others who lack the visual functions to care about how crisp the screen looks; What I and every other visually disabled person wants is "Ear Candy", the type of synthed voice that sounds like she or he really exists, so we dont get fed up with listening to that horrible robot voice all day and go crazy.
One thing that most people dont understand as well is that most of us who are disabled in any way at all are dirt poor. It could be from medical bills, the lack of the ability to even work because of our disability, the fact that to most we are seen as less then human so people dont want to hire us for work we can do, or any number of other reasons. The fact is, most of us do not have much money and have a lot of free time on our hands. We could be open sources greatest contributors if the OOS community cared enough to do the things we cant to help us make the tools we need. Once our hungry minds have the option, you have no idea how much we will use it.
I'm very lucky. I worked as a independent consulted for 5 years, taught myself as much as I could while I still had better eye sight then I do now in my "good" eye, and make sure to keep lights dim or off when I dont have to worry about a sightie needing more light to function so I dont get eye strain or migraines that could keep me from working due to my photo sensitivity. I made a living with Linux offering support, administration services, and my skills as a code monkey against all odds for 5 years, before my current job, because I did not give up. Many of my fellow disabled did not have the chance to use even that much sight, or did not get the time I did at a young age to learn things the "normal" way before my accident. That gave me a slight advantage, as now I know both worlds.
Most of us dont have that. But then again most people dont understand, they cant. So everybody reading this, pick a day out of the week and go to bed the night before wearing a blindfold. Wake up with it still on and go through just one day without your ability to see. At all. Then maybe you will get a hint of what it is like for us, OOS's most eager and unwelcome members. And I say only a hint as that is all you will get; Because the first time you fall down, bump into something and break soemthing, want to cook a meal or need to take a piss, the first thing your going to do is take that blindfold off. Just remember that many do not have that option.
- d
Yes. However, what surprises me is that the Free Software community doesn't have stronger ties with community-centric organisations such as voluntary groups, human rights groups, etc. They're really natural allies, considering the ethical concerns that both groups take seriously etc.
- Even Slackware gives the option to install a speakup kernel.
- KDE has text-to-speech, though only the frontend in earlier versions.
- KDE also enables you to resize the screen easily, helping those with less severe vision problems.
- Check this out
Nothing in FOSS can be taken and presented as An Official Display of How Good It Is And Always Shall Be. Most things are work in progress.If there's a lack of communication, it's the fault of the disabled community. Or are FOSS developers to spend their time researching potential user groups' needs instead of coding? I imagine that disabled rights groups have already provided the necessary information, and are just waiting for the tools to appear, because from what little I've seen, they're very good at doing their part. If they haven't done that yet, tough luck. Unless they want some sighted programmer to just guess?
Another thing I didn't like about this article was its use of the phrase "disabled people". It's about THE BLIND, so just say THE BLIND. Deaf people don't have any fixable problems with computers unless some idiot decides to make their program depend on sound feedback. There's little we can do to enable a dumb person to use VOIP, short of recognising their speech and converting it to text. Reduced mobility users need to complain to their hardware vendors if there are no Linux drivers for their single-handed keyboards or whatever they may need. They are working on blind access. Work is slow because FOSS runs on itch scratching. People make software that they want. Companies work on software that they use.
I really want blind users to be able to have their needs catered for. I don't want them to need to send letters saying things like "Do you know that choosing Linux means excluding blind users?". But as in everything else, steps are being made. Unfortunately, it's quite a long journey:
This is an additional reason to learn proper (X)HTML, CSS et al. They have very interesting accessibility features which cannot be matched by ad-hoc MSIE HTML.
BTW, while I'm evangelizing standards, every web developer, *especially* framework developers (Rails guys, I'm looking at you), should be required by law to read the damn HTTP RFC. Content-negotiation is so underrated; it could be very useful for accessibility. HTTP rulez, it's a shame that so few reconize it.
Prescriptive grammar:linguistics
Until I witnessed a 100% blind person using a computer, my
understanding of the problem was very flawed. With the
monitor turned off he could browse web sites, read/write
email, and puzzle through popup error messages. He used
a text to speech software package that read to him faster
than I could listen. The package also provided an interface
for configuring a huge number of custom hotkeys which he
programmed and used extensively. The way his brain adapted to a
sound based interface was amazing. I've never seen anything
like it.