[SLUG] Opinions wanted with accessibility issues.

[john at johnallsopp.co.uk]

> My main passion is accessibility, in particular I would like to
> improve accessibility to computers for the elderly and for the blind
> (of course these sadly often go hand-in-hand). I am an optometrist
> with plenty of experience dealing with these groups and there is a
> great desire for an easy to use, simple OS. There a smattering of very
> expensive Windows based applications catering for these people at
> present but no good freeware option. Ubuntu has orca and screen reader
> but in my opinion it's putting the cart before the horse. The best way
> of improving accessibility for people with visual disability is not to
> provide tools for people to access the standard interface. They are
> not required if the interface is designed correctly in the first
> place. The standard 'windows' environment is the problem here. The
> majority of users in these groups want a limited selection of
> applications ie word processing, e-mail, internet, OCR (a must for
> vision disabled persons) and photo viewer.

Well I'm sure they'll pipe up at some point, but we've done lots of
exploration of this topic, working with Scarborough Blind and
Partially Sighted Association/Centre/Can't Remember, so if we ever
meet we can tell you about it :-)

I'm sure others who worked harder on it than me will expand.

J