[laptop-accessibility] How can the XO be made accessible to blind

[Duane King]

>On Monday 07 January 2008 10:28:41 pm Albert Cahalan wrote:
> For a long time now, I've thought that accessibility adaptations
> are kind of the wrong approach.

I agree.  Too much feature creep and the bloat have traveled into the 
accessability realm;  People forget that the goals of accessibility are 
not "The blind can use software XYZ to read or otherwise use this format or 
file", its really "The blind can read or use this format or file.".  They are 
not the same, even if they often are treated like each other.

> Perhaps there is a need for both. Common stuff that gets
> used every day could be written to be optimal for audio control.
> Random seldom-used things could get the normal treatment.
Exactly.  You really don not need to an image application for example to have 
accessibility controls, at least not for the fully blind.  The reason the 
partially sighted have more tools and greater ease of use on today's desktop 
is because as much as the sighted developers may want to help, they still 
find comfort in the gui.. and this leads to the sighted who are working on 
helping out blind accessibility to invariably start using or adapting GUI 
items, or wasting time trying to get GUI's to work with audio...  so the idea 
of not using the GUI available seems to be a strange and impossible one.

This problem can simply be solved by not giving the accessibility developers - 
sighted or not - a GUI at all.  In my mind, the perfect interface is one both 
the perfectly sighted and the perfectly blind can use and be equaly 
productive in.

 - Duane King