Is accessibility designed by someone that doesn’t require that accessibility any good? I think that hesitance keeps some maintaners from fixing some of the longer standing issues.
I do think there should be a unique distro attuned to users requiring speaker or braille output. It can be a bit lacking on local security but it should be the software for a computer that you can listen to and can listen to you.
I’m not blind but MATE has been my goto DE. I want a modern yet no-frills desktop.
There was a major focus shift maybe 5 or 10 years ago towards security in Linux design, especially with the development of Wayland, pipewire and systemd.
The problem is that accessibility software behaves in many ways like spyware or malware.
It reads all windows, it hooks themselves in programs, it redirects output and input.
The security focused (even security first) approach of many developers broke all the accessibility workflows and proper API to do it the new and safe way have low priority.
A few exist but it is still far away from feature parity.
That’s why I am against the Wayland default or even worse Wayland only approach that many distributions have nowadays, Wayland is still barely useable for many people who need working accessibility solutions and that should be seen as a major stopper issue for a wide release like that.
A separate but equal OS is tricky because it will be perpetually teetering on the edge of collapse because of lack of support. These features need to be baked into the major distros (or done in a way that they can be quickly and effectively layered on top). That way your accessibility maintainer doesn’t have to be an entire OS maintainer.
Is accessibility designed by someone that doesn’t require that accessibility any good?
It can be if it’s tested with users. There are guidelines/principles (just like with sighted users), but what makes a good (robust) experience is subjective and requires testing.
Is accessibility designed by someone that doesn’t require that accessibility any good? I think that hesitance keeps some maintaners from fixing some of the longer standing issues.
I do think there should be a unique distro attuned to users requiring speaker or braille output. It can be a bit lacking on local security but it should be the software for a computer that you can listen to and can listen to you.
I’m not blind but MATE has been my goto DE. I want a modern yet no-frills desktop.
There was a major focus shift maybe 5 or 10 years ago towards security in Linux design, especially with the development of Wayland, pipewire and systemd. The problem is that accessibility software behaves in many ways like spyware or malware. It reads all windows, it hooks themselves in programs, it redirects output and input. The security focused (even security first) approach of many developers broke all the accessibility workflows and proper API to do it the new and safe way have low priority. A few exist but it is still far away from feature parity.
That’s why I am against the Wayland default or even worse Wayland only approach that many distributions have nowadays, Wayland is still barely useable for many people who need working accessibility solutions and that should be seen as a major stopper issue for a wide release like that.
A separate but equal OS is tricky because it will be perpetually teetering on the edge of collapse because of lack of support. These features need to be baked into the major distros (or done in a way that they can be quickly and effectively layered on top). That way your accessibility maintainer doesn’t have to be an entire OS maintainer.
@Rentlar@lemmy.ca
There is e.g. the ADRIANE KNOPPIX version especially designed for blind people.
It can be if it’s tested with users. There are guidelines/principles (just like with sighted users), but what makes a good (robust) experience is subjective and requires testing.