El 23/03/2016 a las 16:49, Andrés Muñiz Piniella escribió:
* A recent survey from webAIM https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebAIM showed
that it seems that JAWS is loosing market share to nvda but of course that
only works on windows.
Someone needs to port NVDA to other platforms other than Windows. I'm
sorry to say it, but from own experience, and that from other
partly-sighted/blind users, Orca could do much better.
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.
According to the World Health Organization
(http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs282/en/), there are 246
million people with low vision and 39 million are completely blind
worldwide. That's ~13.6% of the "visual issues spectrum". However, I can
say, mostly from my own personal experiences, that for some fairly
common visual diseases, such as Retinitis Pigmentosa, that high contrast
levels, big fonts, etc... hardly ever make a difference. For quite a few
of us, screen readers are the only way to use GUIs... but us geeks who
know how to use bash can easily get around that ;). It's a bit ironic
that good and old command lines are incredibly more accessible than any
other form of user interface that has been invented since. I mean, emacs
is our best friend for some reason, no? I would definitively call emacs
the most accessible _and_ flexible application ever, plus it's free
software!
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?
Again, let's not generalize. Even if there was a single blind person in
the world, his/her needs would be a priority. Applications _are_ a
problem, and a bigger one that the web. That is for several reasons.
Firstly, the browser itself is an application, no? Then, when your
screen reader is unable to navigate through Gmail's web page, you
install Thunderbird, right? Well, then we have the fact that the OS' GUI
itself is sort of an application. It needs to be accessible, too! We
have to write documents and spreadsheets for work and the stuff, too.
Things such as LibreOffice have a _long_ way to go in order to be
accessible... emacs is enough most of the time, anyway ;). There are
lots of niche applications we often need to use, like every user, and
need to rely on them being accessible.
A campaign or some support of the like would certainly be helpful. As
far as I can see, most people here are here because they appreciate
their fundamental freedoms, and because they are willing to help. I am a
(hobbyist) programmer, so I am definitively willing to help here as
however I can.
Cheers,
- Alejandro Soto
