Ubuntu and accessibilty
Hi, there is a questionaire doing the the rounds via the accessibilty mailing list on Ubuntu, taking a few minutes to fill it in will help that team.
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| One of the projects kicked off by the accessibility team at the Ubuntu Developer Summit was to create a set of personas or fictional characters with accessibility needs. The design team have a set of personas already, each with different skills and life experiences and it is these people they think about when designing the user interface. One of their personas (Lola, a 29 year old PhD student living in Paris) is partially sighted and uses assistive technology. This is a great start, but we want to provide the design team and all those working on Ubuntu with some more detailed personas with an assortment of needs. The aim is to educate and motivate all those working on Ubuntu, accessibility isn't just a technical feature, it is about people and if some part of the system isn't available for everyone then it is broken.
In order to write a series of fictional, but believable characters we have put together a survey asking people to tell us about themselves and the issues they find when interacting with computers. We collaborated on the questions that should be asked here http://pad.ubuntu-uk.org/OGCR7tZiNX and now we have taken the results of that work and built an online form http://access.libertus.co.uk and an alternative text version https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Accessibility/Personas/Survey which can be emailed to ubuntu.accessibility.survey@gmail.com Please take a few minutes to fill out the survey and pass it on to friends and relatives who may be able to provide interesting and useful answers. When the results are in (by August 8th or thereabouts) we will start the process of writing up the personas using the survey answers as inspiration.This will generate our realistic, but fictional, characters who will help make Ubuntu better for everyone. |
I know Alan, so do ask that you take a few minutes to help the team improve Ubuntu for everyone.
Thanks in advance,
Phill.
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Phill,
Looks like a worthwhile venture! Thanks for the heads up on this one.
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Hi,
I have no idea if anyone took part, but Alan has just released the following email
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| The results of the survey are now in, we had a fantastic response and we
have 26 really great detailed replies. The next step is to group these roughly by impairment then use the replies as an inspiration to write up descriptions of realistic but fictional characters that can be used by developers and user experience designers to ensure that Ubuntu is built for these characters. For a bit of background on design personas in general and how they are used here is a description of how IBM use them http://www-01.ibm.com/software/ucd/gallery/software.html Canonical have a set of personas already, one of them has a visual impairment, we want to build a small set of personas with a range of accessibility needs and write them up to the same standard of quality as the existing Canonical documents so they can be fed into the design team. If you would like to help in the process of getting from survey responses to personas then please email myself or Penelope Stowe and we will send you a copy of the spreadsheet with all the responses and just names and email addresses removed. We decided at the meeting last night that we would share the spreadsheet with anyone on the list who asks for it, but we won't publish it on the internet or post it to the list in it's raw form. Alan. |
I will not post their email addresses, but if any of you are interested, please just reply (I am subscribed to this thread) and I will ensure your details are passed on.
Regards,
Phill.
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Hi, I have this in my inbox,
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| Alan Bell and I sorted through the surveys last weekend and have them
now sorted by impairment I'd like to set up a meeting for this week for people interested in working on the personas. That way now that we have the data sorted, we can organize who is working on which persona. We should be aiming to get the personas themselves all done by October 10th, of course! I'd like to have the meeting on Tuesday September 7 at 20:00 UTC. If you're interested in helping us finish personas project and cannot make this meeting, please let me know. Otherwise, I hope everyone who is interested can make it! We'd like to be able to break it down so that the same people aren't doing all the personas. Thanks! Penelope -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility |
I know they would appreciate any input people from this forum could give.
Regards,
Phill.
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Phill,
Thanks for the continued updates!
Ill health has prevented me from doing very much this year, but I'm sure other members have been following the progress of this important research with interest.
Once I'm able to focus and concentrate more fully, I'll need to delve into it further. Linux and Ubuntu have been on my 'To investigate more' list for far too long!
Again, many thanks!
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Things are moving along, I do hope no one on the forum has a problem with my keeping you updated as to where Ubuntu and Linux in general is heading.
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| From: Bryen M. Yunashko
Date: Tue, Sep 7, 2010 at 8:46 PM Subject: CSUN 2011 Call for Papers To: GNOME-A11y <gnome-accessibility-list@gnome.org>, orca-list@gnome.org Folks, We had a very positive showing at the CSUN Accessibility Conference 2010 this past March where we also hosted a GNOME-A11y Hackfest on the side. Several team members presented during the conference and we held a booth on the exhibit floor. The most important accomplishment we had was that we raised the awareness of open source as a viable option for accessibility needs to people who probably didn't realize the existence of open source. The next conference will be March 14-19, 2011 in San Diego, California. Call for papers has recently opened and will extend to October 13, 2010 (Wednesday.) http://www.csunconference.org/index.cfm?EID=80000300 We encourage as much diversity and creativity in the various topics we could present on. Let's build on what we did last year! If you'd like to discuss your ideas here on the list, please do so! Thanks! Bryen M Yunashko GNOME-A11y Outreach _______________________________________________ gnome-accessibility-list mailing list gnome-accessibility-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-accessibility-list -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility |
These projects can only be driven forward with support from people, the very same people who use this forum. Please do get involved.
Regards,
Phill.
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This is interesting work being undertaken with quite an orthodox process and done in a professional manner. Much of the Open Source world could learn from this overall approach, as well as the detailed aspects of accessibility they are covering.
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Hi,
well at the Ubuntu Developers Summit it was announced that accessibility was no longer an optional add-on, but a requirement. (I think some people had a heart attack at that news). As a member of various teams, including the accessibility one. I've had the greatest pleasure in meeting and getting to know Manuèla a truly remarkable lady. She is now actively pursuing various areas with great enthusiasm. If anyone needs a bit of help testing things be sure to give her a shout
As part of the upcoming php / web classrooms I've been volunteered to give at least one classroom on accessibility, a lot of what I learned I learned from chatting to you good people. It will be a pleasure to pass that knowledge on to up coming web designers.
Regards,
Phill.
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Hiyas a little update. The Ubuntu wiki system is shortly to undergo yet another review on how how it displays the information it holds. This time, accessibility is also important rather than just making it 'look pretty'. Slowly, but surely, progress is being made.
Regards,
Phill.
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I am puzzled that no one from here has approached the Ubuntu Accessibilty team? We now approach 11.10, the accessibility team are doing their utmost. Is it that no one here wishes to actually help?
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Accessibility
I'm sorry to say, that if you people do not get your collective fingers out some where the sun does not shine, then that group cannot 'prove' to the devs that your opinions should be taken into account.
It also dis-heartens me for trying to advise young web designers to learn accessibilty from wrote, as opposed to even be bothered learning it later. Catch them young and make it automatic to them.
Regards,
Phill.
phillw@ubuntu.com
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Our day jobs, social lives, hobbies and enjoyment of occasional Summery days in the UK are probably the main causes of little participation from our regulars. (Myself included.)
Also, I use Windows XP. So there isn't a direct incentive to get involved with an operating system that I don't use.
One thing I can help with straight away is the illogical heading structure of the wiki page you have linked to. It's currently like this, with depth in the list indicating the heading number and square brackets around my comments:
- Ubuntu Wiki [website title is already in the <title>, shouldn't be in the <h1>)
- Accessibility [this should be <h1> because it's the main heading for the content
- The Accessibility Team [redundant at best, could be considered outright wrong]
- Mission [fine]
- About [huh? isn't this whole page 'about' something?!!]
- Computing With Disabilities [fine, although we clearly aren't talking about 'The Accessibility Team' any more...]
- The Nature of Disability [fine]
- A Changing Society [you've buried the most interesting section at the bottom of the page! this should be at the top, to get readers interested]
- The Nature of Disability [fine]
- More Information [fine, although the paragraph after it is dreadfully rambling]
- Mission [fine]
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