Joining the Ubuntu Accessibility Team

[Henrik]

If your reading this you are likely considering joining the team. Great! It's easy to join and there are no formal requirements or procedures. You only need an interest in the topic and a willingness to help out with improving access on Ubuntu.

You might want to register a launchpad account (https://launchpad.net/+login) though so you can edit the wiki and sign up on the team page (https://launchpad.net/people/accessibility). This will also be useful if you want to file bugs or contribute to specifications.

Next I suggest you join the access mailing list (https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility) and introduce yourself. The most difficult thing for new members of any team is figuring out where to start. We need help with coding, testing, documentation, and user support. If you let us know what general area you might be interested in the existing team members should be able to advise you on concrete items you can help with.

Welcome to the team!

[tgbrowning]

Am extremely new to Ubuntu (still getting set up) but have been a programmer for about twenty years working in DOS and Windows. Am eleven months away from retiring and at that point, will be dropping Windows completely, I expect. The release of Vista was the last straw.

Also, am deaf, and have some vision problems as well.

[Samhain13]

Hello. I just signed up in the mailing list and sent an introductory note. I hope I can help in the testing, especially in the area of web browsing. :)

[speeddemon8803]

Wow, never knew signing up for an Ubuntu team was so easy! Happy Ubuntuing everyone! I have been using Ubuntu since 6.06 boy that was rough...6.10...ok a little better...7.04 now were getting somewhere! If you guys want or need assistance with the accessibility aspects of Ubuntu...im here for ya folks!

[sniffcrisps]

Hi,

I've just submitted my request to join the team. I work as an accessibility architect for the UK Government, and also work for the Brithish Computer Society. I hope to assist with accessibility testing and development for Ubuntu.

Stuart

[DeafLinux]

I am an IT with the University of Florida and a network administrator for the disability network (irc.deepspace.org) and we have users who are converting to Ubuntu. I am assiting them on set up and I do a lot of testing. I would like to be on this team to test software and get feedbacks from users on how to improve the program. I have been using Ubuntu for 2 years after leaving suse. I am Deaf since birth.

Cordially,

DeafLinux

[drbongo]

I would be very keen to get involved with this. I currently work as the ICT Development Officer at the Royal National College for the Blind in Hereford, UK.

I am trying to introduce Linux at the College, but Linux has always lagged behind Windows accessibility software. I have been experimenting with the Orca screen-reader/magnifier in combination and alone. The Orca voices are reasonable, and they offer regional dialects not just American accents. However, even with Orca working you do not have access to all applications, and the full screen magnification is still a little jerky and the fonts pixillated.

In the short-term I want to remaster ubuntu using the remastersys gui with specific accessibility options activated at boot time in three flavours - speech, magnification and speech with magnification.

I am also exploring the development of talking applications which use either text to speech and/or recorded speech rather than trying to use a system wide screen-reader.

I will certainly register with the development team and would be happy to communicate with anyone who is interested in developing and/or using such software.

drbongo

[srividya]

I would be very keen to get involved with this. I currently work as the ICT Development Officer at the Royal National College for the Blind in Hereford, UK.

I am trying to introduce Linux at the College, but Linux has always lagged behind Windows accessibility software. I have been experimenting with the Orca screen-reader/magnifier in combination and alone. The Orca voices are reasonable, and they offer regional dialects not just American accents. However, even with Orca working you do not have access to all applications, and the full screen magnification is still a little jerky and the fonts pixillated.

In the short-term I want to remaster ubuntu using the remastersys gui with specific accessibility options activated at boot time in three flavours - speech, magnification and speech with magnification.

I am also exploring the development of talking applications which use either text to speech and/or recorded speech rather than trying to use a system wide screen-reader.

I will certainly register with the development team and would be happy to communicate with anyone who is interested in developing and/or using such software.

drbongo

Hi drbongo ..... This is Srividya from India... Am very glad to see u here and your post gave me a big hope that you would help me out with my problem... :)

Let me first introduce myself. Me doing my finaly year Engineering course and am doing an project for visually impaired persons and that includes developing an application say a calculator and am using an touch screen monitor with which the person needs to move his finger around the screen and the system will just read out the icons similar to ORCA and once the person reaches his desired number or icon he just need to click on it so that the click event will occur and similarly he can perform his operation. This is one module of my project :)

The next modules comes to be guiding the person say for example if the person wants to select the number 2 then he needs to tell that number then after processing that voice signal we will guide him through the screen, saying move left or right or whatever it is. I hope i made you understand my project, and here comes the problem ;)

I have now setup my environment by loading ubuntu 8.10 and i have got one touch screen monitor and installed the driver for it. and now i need the driver code supporting my environment and that will be helpfull to me ... can u please help me out :( :)

[joegill85]

I am retired living in France loving every minute of it and would like if I can, to help this forum

I created a new post on the forum explaining how I intend to construct a built in trackball using a 3inch arcade type trackball with separate buttons.

I am quite sure that if it works as I hope it will be of use to others like myself, who difficulty using a mouse. I am more than happy to share the results and as I progress I will add to my original post.

I am a newby to Ubuntu but have in the past used VBA for simple programing tasks and have created tested and launched Access databases for large scale information gathering, analysis, and reporting.

I can test software and write up information in a structured manner and give a reasoned assessment of my findings

Looking forward to helping as best I can

Joe

[phillw]

Hi,

I have previously posted here, about the likes of Rule 508 compliance testing, etc.
I'm doing my best with my site design - XHTML 1.0 Strict Standard for Web-sites & CSS v2.1 for Styling does lend itself very well to the rules, which is quite kewl.

I've gotten as far as the "Turn Navigation Links On/Off" on the manual stuff that needs to be switchable - I can appreciate why Nav Links, especially all 50+ of them, could be a 'pain' !!

Anyways ... Yes, I'd be more than happy to help out in any way that I can.

I've been asked by one of the guyz over on Beginners to put a wiki page up (So you can all have a good laugh) --> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/phillw

As I'm 'playing' with 10.04 alpha and take the suggested email updates of how far they are upto with dev, this one popped into my mail box - Can any one shed any light on it ?

http://packages.ubunut.com/lucid/mbrola

and, specifically,


Use Mbrola along with Freephone, cicero or espeak to have a complete text-to-speech in English.BTW according to the release notes .... it's a bit more than just english :)



mbrola-br3 - Brazilian Portuguese male voice for Mbrola
mbrola-cr1 - Croatian male voice for Mbrola
mbrola-cz2 - Czech male voice for Mbrola
and 6 more, on top.

/edit plus a further 9 on the next email, and two on the next one after that

Looks like some people have been busy !!!

Has anyone got any knowledge of Freephone, cicero or espeak within Ubuntu ?

Thanks,

Phill.

[andrewE69]

I believe one of the guys used my computer and completely block accessibility of some programs. for example, I couldn't change my desktop background and I couldn't change my password to my lock screen...any thoughts? thanks ;)

[UndiFineD]

@ andrewE69 :
This seems more of a security and settings concern than that of accessibility.

furthermore, if these "boys" are known people to you, you should resolve that with them.

[Kristinaaa]

Hello everyone,

I just joined the mailing list. I am doing a masters degree in Human Computer Interaction and I would like to help you, if possible, with accessibility testing for Ubuntu programs.

Kristina

[mjtaryan]

Hi,

I'm Michael Ryan (Michael or Mike -- either will do. I even answer to "hey you":p)

I'm a retired CS prof who has been visually impaired (legally blind) since birth due to a rare genetic defect. At my former university I was a member of the ADA team. In the area of accessibility, obviously my interests tend to gravitate toward assistive technology for visually impaired (low vision to totally blind) users. Th6us far, most of the discussions I've seen on most Ubuntu related sites appear not to be by people who have poor or no eyesight, but rather by those who need certain tools like screen nagnification for detailed work.

My initial suggestion for Ubuntu in this area is to get and install a copy of ZoomText Screen Magnifier and Reader on a Windows 7 or above machine and get to know it inside abd out. What we (V-I people) need from Ubuntu or associated developers is a tool with all of these features AND a comparable GUI. It should not be necessary to have to revert to using the terminal/command line when Ubuntu is fully capable of a sophisticated graphical interface. those tools currently incuded in Ubuntu do NOT eet the needs of most visually impaired individuals. ZoomText is the premiere VI tool for Windows and a good place to start would be to mimic/emulate it and its capsbilities and features. The ack of such a tool across the entire Linux range is why many of us don't switch from Wkbdows or Mac to a Linux OS.

Just some iniyial thoughts.

[mjtaryan]

Sorry for the typos. Amnusingva tablet at the moment and getting tge cursor to a particular place in the edit box isvvirtually impossuble - at leastvwith the growser I'm using.

[bitsnpcs]

Hello,
do ideas for Accessibility software go in this thread ?

[deadflowr]

Hello,
do ideas for Accessibility software go in this thread ?

No, they'd most likely get lost in the shuffle.
Developers don't go out of their way to read forum posts.
This thread is mainly a "here's how to join and participate in the team" thread.
Best to post/join the mailing list linked in post #1.

[bitsnpcs]

Thank You