Fosdem

[Jean-Philippe MENGUAL <mengualjeanphi AT free.fr>]

Salut,

Voilà mon "brouillon" de la conférence faite ce matin au FOSDEM. Plusieurs 
remarques:
- Il n'est pas rédigé (je suis incapable de rédiger ce que je vais dire)
- Il est plus complet aussi au final;
- Les corrections finales de langue anglaise ne sont pas répercutées (il est 
en anglais bien sûr)

Je laisse à ceux qui ont assisté à la conf le soin de le recorriger si on 
veut quelque chose de plus propre.

Sur le même thème:
- Une question a porté sur l'afficheur braille libre. Le nom du projet (qui 
m'avait échappé malheureusement) est thefreecat, http://brl.thefreecat.org
- J'ai trouvé via la mailing de Debian-accessibility le logiciel 
daisy-player, pour prolonger l'échange que j'ai eu sur ce point après la 
dernière conf de la devroom. Ça peut intéresser ceux avec qui on en a discuté.


Bonne journée,


Jean-Philippe MENGUAL

How does an sight impair see a computer?

User point of view. User who doesn't develop, only some shell scripts he 
changes.
My progression on Linux: 2004, 2008
A major progress: graphical accessibility, universality. Because graphical 
could be universal (Ubuntu..., Windows and what brought GUI...). But to be 
really universal, it includes accessibility issue. That's to say: making a 
software usable by everybody, even impaired people. So purpose is allow 
access of software for classical impaired people (blind, beaf, mobility, 
fingerhanded...), but also cognitive.
Today, in Free Software, technologies exist for various impaired people too, 
I don't know them in detail. I let you discover opengazer, dasher, ticker... 
presented by people who know this problematic much better than I.
I'd like to explain you how a blind people can see a computer, and how he 
sees this. And how does it happen with Free Software, where there's a high 
variety of tools in various contexts. Idea is that beyond the good sense to 
make accessible a soft (labels to help screen readers, we'll explain a bit 
more...), it's useful to know how user sees the soft one is coding. 
What's at take?
-Job: admin system for impaired people, accessibility of desktops/laptops, 
developping in system world.
-Daily life: browsing Internet, reading mail, writting letters, tables, ..., 
chat (write, irc, speech), multimedia, 
-Historical: reading books, access to information (daisy, transcription)

1. How does a screen appear?
a) Generally speaking: we explore it via keyboard. Mouse excluded.
b) On the Internet: screen readers display everything from top to bottom, not 
left to right
c) Architecture: screen reader (Orca) parses information, then sends it to 
braille display via brltty API, or on a speech synthetiser via gnome-speech 
or speech-dispatcher. Then:
-speech: reads what is on PC cursor or on global review
-Braille: one line, 40 cells, braille cells. 1 cell=8 dots. To see all the 
screen, necessary to move the braille window or move PC cursor. Focus on PC 
cursor. Global revision exists too. But no convinient in every context.

2. What are most operative free tools
a) Console: emacspeak, speakup (kernel) (admin, monitoring...), brltty
b) graphical (desktop): Gnome, Orca. In braille perfect. In speech, depends 
on synthetiser. Access to: Gnome, OOo, firefox (so music, ...), and in 
general to GTK). 

3. What are challenges?
a) Linking beautiful layout and accessibility: it's possible if application 
is coded properly, with basic principles of coherence (labels, descriptions, 
...), to help screen readers. Gnome works very much for that. Screen readers 
dev then do work of the soft (scripts, ...).
b) Improve tools: speech synthetisers. pico arrives. Proprietary problematic.
c) Create tools OCR (cf. later), software to forward info between some 
braille displays and computer. Because some braille display have an internal 
OS and can communicate directly wite PC. Daisy readers in development. 
Odttobraille (transcription).

4. What are possible solutions
a) Having a whole accessibility staff in a distro: example of Debian. If 
there's not, goining people who know as they live everyday (blind users, 
blind testers). Hence an accessible documented installer.
b) Help Free projects: very very ambitious. To improve access on the 
Internet, to follow evolutions of Gnome, Libreoffice, ... To support projects 
(cf. Gnome Foundation and what it does). Speech synthetiser studies.
c) Create a real accessibility community: so far, accessibility on Debian for 
example gathers developpers or computer-professionals. My aim: create a swap 
between them and users. Why: test, bug report, feedbacks, wills, help setting 
an accessible system. Improve always doc. Essential dialogue between 2 worlds 
in one community per distro. Allows dev to learn problematic and make it less 
worrying. Because being accessible, it's not so hard. Doing things properly 
is enough. Don't try creating revolutionary solutions, they likely will be 
less good than what does screen readers/magnifiers. But labels, headers, 
frames, with all items with label, it helps screen readers. And for Orca, why 
not develop a python script to see application?



Today, Free Software becomes very credible to allow a sight impaired people 
to access to one computer. Today, Free solutions allow access to Free 
software, and free software has a lot of capabilities. Alternate to 
proprietary to do, at lower price, daily things. Help to live impairment. 
Some challenges stay and must be solved for future: life of projects (Orca 
and Willie, speech synthetiser). But creating community is, as often in free 
softwale, the best solution. Dialogue allows people to know each other, helps 
for understanding each other, so being less worry. That's why I try doing 
this on Debian to encourage what exists, developpers and approach. But can be 
done everywhere. GNU has accessibility mailing list. For French speaking, 
April has a workgroup. Places to swap, ask, be helped by concerned people and 
other developpers. Challenge very interesting because we're in a time where 
expansive proprietary soft are less and less easy to buy, to be helped to 
buy, and it's a problem for impaired people, employers, public authorities 
who want to do a more accessible world.
One thing sure: if you're interested, you can have people to speak, (deb 
access and their experience, I, gnome...), and you'll see you can helpvia 
your soft, and if you really like, contributing directly. Know that today: 
context creates demand, technically, documentation, support, ...