Accessibility

The Accessibility Team

Mission

Our goal is to make Ubuntu and its derivatives usable by as many people as possible across ages, language and physical abilities. To do that we must provide wide access to the platform, the included software and ultimately to the information we all use and exchange. For some groups of users, platform access requires specialised assistive technology (AT) tools, and those tools must be proven to work well with the remaining desktop software and information on the web or in other formats. Ubuntu is about computing for everyone.

About

The Ubuntu Accessibility Team includes two branches. Accessibility Development concerns itself with improving the packages used for accessibility and adding new applications as needed. This group works very closely with the Ubuntu developers to improve accessibility on the Ubuntu platform.

Accessibility Outreach works with the community to identify a11y issues (both in terms of software and documentation) and provide solutions and spread awareness of the issues. They update the documentation as needed, and work with community users and leaders to insure awareness of accessibility needs are in the forefront.

We communicate on IRC, via mailing lists and in the Ubuntu forum.

Computing With Disabilities

Off-the-shelf computers use a set of standard input and output devices that have not changed much over the last few decades: keyboard, mouse, screen and audio speakers are the most common. However, these are not suitable for everyone, or at least not as they are originally configured. Some users need a specially adapted keyboard, mouse or output hardware while other users can manage with fairly simple software modifications. On some cases software can be used to emulate one of these devices through another, such as sound events displayed on the screen, or the numeric keypad used to move the mouse cursor. The spectrum of use cases is wide, from those who require a slightly larger font to those who need a switch-operated scanning system.

The Nature of Disability

There is a large spectrum of conditions that might be considered a disability, from the very severe to those who might not ever think of themselves as disabled, but who might still benefit from some assistive technology. Common to all of them however is that factors in the environment can greatly affect the level of the disability.

For example, someone who is unable to navigate stairs becomes very disabled in a town where there are stairs everywhere, but much less so if the stairs were replaced with ramps. They would then be able to do their banking, shopping and visit friends without noticeable inconvenience. Likewise, someone with a mild condition like color-blindness would be severely affected if society was structured such that vital functions relied on recognition of colors.

A Changing Society

Some groups of disabled people were early adopters of computer technology. Having books and newspapers available in electronic form gives increased flexibility to many and specialist input and output hardware have provided assistance in vital basic communication. In that sense, computers have made many people less disabled than they would otherwise be.

At the same time, our society generally is becoming increasingly based on computerized information and communication. It is becoming increasingly common to perform everyday tasks such as banking, shopping or inter-personal communication on-line. In a world where hardware, software and on-line content is evolving quickly it is a continuing challenge to insure that equal access is maintained. An inaccessible computer system can easily become a virtual staircase.

The demographics of society and therefore of computer users is also changing. Not only are a growing number of older people logging on, but computer use is increasing in parts of the world where literacy rates are low. Ensuring that computers are accessible for these groups often also has the added bonus of making them easier to use for everyone. Accessibility is cutting edge in software design Smile :)

More Information

There is much more information available for those interested. Please check out our additional information.


CategoryAccessibility

Accessibility (last edited 2010-11-26 16:23:05 by 75-167-141-126)