Re: [libreplanet-discuss] We need a Great campaign To tell the programmers to improve their programs To work well with the screen Reader

[Fabio Pesari]

On 03/23/2016 11:49 PM, Andrés Muñiz Piniella wrote:
>
> JAWS is loosing market share to nvda but of course that only works on windows.

It seems that NVDA is not fully free software, as its repository on
GitHub lists proprietary dependencies.

It too uses eSpeak though, so I think that rather than try to port this
program to GNU/Linux, it would be better to enhance eSpeak and Orca but
before that, find out if the maintained alternatives to eSpeak (Festival
and Sinsy written in C++ and Gnuspeech written in Objective C) can be
better suited for this task.

I think the FSF was right to propose this as a high priority project,
but simply listing it doesn't help stuff get developed or popularized
(most people still use Skype, and that's been on the high priority list
for years).

I think they should collaborate with the Accessible Computing Foundation
to help them secure some funding, and those funds should be used to help
improve the existing programs. I know the Orca devs aren't looking for
funds but still, it would be bad if Orca lost users to NVDA (and
consequently, GNU/Linux to Windows) and there are many items on their
bug tracker.

> Then it seems that blind is a spectrum and that 97% of people that 
> are blind in UK can acutually see a bit so screen readers might not be needed
> but better font contrast.

About users with lesser visual impairments - in my opinion they do not
have the highest priority simply because it's always best to prepare for
the worst case scenario, and all of those people can use screen readers
for sure, but the same can't be said about other kinds of software (like
screen magnifiers, and so on).

A good thing to have would be a braille display with a libre hardware
design. Does such a thing exist?

> Does this mean that what most people use is the web so that programs 
> (applications) is really not as big an issue (urgent)? 
> And the focus of a campaign should be aimed at web?

This is valid for every field in computing, not just accessibility. In
my opinion it's a lost cause: too many people working on websites, a lot
of commercial interests (ads, DRM, captchas), plenty of images and a
complete disregard for user freedom (from proprietary JavaScript to CDNs).

On most websites, what counts is bling - I am not visually impaired and
yet I have trouble browsing most of them, and many of them require
JavaScript for no reason at all.

I think the web is only doomed to get worse, especially as it moves away
from plain text, and there is no way to enforce any kind of standard.
Fortunately, RSS exists, so sites supporting it will always be
accessible to visually impaired users.