Proposed Mozilla accessibility strategy
Frank Hecker
a proposed high-level strategy for Mozilla-related accessibility efforts:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Accessibility/Strategy
Note that this is not a detailed roadmap for future work, and not a firm
commitment to fund or perform such work. Rather it is intended to
provide a context within within which we can make overall decisions
about where we should concentrate funding and effort. This is especially
important because our resources are very much finite, and we will need
to make decisions about what we should do and what we should leave
undone or leave to others to do.
This is very much a work in progress, and I'll be revising this over
time to reflect changed circumstances and priorities. I've reviewed the
document with a number of people involved in Mozilla accessibility
efforts, and would be happy to consider further revisions based on
public comments.
Frank
--
Frank Hecker
hec...@mozillafoundation.org
Jason White
> I have written and published
> a proposed high-level strategy for Mozilla-related accessibility efforts:
This is an excellent overview, and I would support the priorities defined in
the document.
There is one omission to which I would like to draw attention: the need to
make Mozilla's MathML support accessible with AT, including, of course, free
and open-source AT. While it is not the purpose of this document to list every
project, I am concerned that this area may have been overlooked, or given
insufficient attention, in planning future work.
In general, though, I agree that the Mozilla project should be concentrating
its resources on the priorities outlined in this document, in particular with
an emphasis on open-source assistive technologies and the accessibility
infrastructure of Mozilla applications.
Steve Lee
I actually caught David Bolter's tweet a few days ago. I agree it
closely matches my understanding of the key activities on the radar
and being worked on now.
My only comment is that it could be read to indicate VI is the only
area of consideration. I know that is probably only a result of
current active projects (and I'm very aware Jambu is not doing
anything to help here at the moment) but perhaps some mention should
be made of other areas like deaf, physical and learning difficulties?
Unless they really are not part of the strategy right now.
Oh a second thought while AccessFirefox is a community effort it has a
vital role in awareness and dissemination and I think they should be
on the strategy in a general sense.
Steve
2009/4/19 Frank Hecker <hec...@mozillafoundation.org>:
> _______________________________________________
> dev-accessibility mailing list
> dev-acce...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-accessibility
>
Frank Hecker
> There is one omission to which I would like to draw attention: the need to
> make Mozilla's MathML support accessible with AT, including, of course, free
> and open-source AT. While it is not the purpose of this document to list every
> project, I am concerned that this area may have been overlooked, or given
> insufficient attention, in planning future work.
As an ex-math student I have a personal interest in MathML. I have not
kept up with Mozilla MathML activities, but my understanding is that
there is (or will be) a new module owner for MathML and hopefully we'll
see renewed activity with MathML and Mozilla. In terms of MathML a11y, I
suggest working with the new module owner (whoever he/she is) to put
together a list of desired enhancements, and try to find someone who
could work on those enhancements. We're always receptive to new grant
proposals, even if we can't necessarily fund all of them right now.
Frank Hecker
> My only comment is that it could be read to indicate VI is the only
> area of consideration. I know that is probably only a result of
> current active projects (and I'm very aware Jambu is not doing
> anything to help here at the moment) but perhaps some mention should
> be made of other areas like deaf, physical and learning difficulties?
> Unless they really are not part of the strategy right now.
The strategy was influenced by the set of projects we're currently
considering, and you're correct that these are mainly focused on visual
impairment. However there's no intent to restrict the strategy to VI, we
just need people to step up and propose suitable projects that address
issues other than VI.
> Oh a second thought while AccessFirefox is a community effort it has a
> vital role in awareness and dissemination and I think they should be
> on the strategy in a general sense.
If you think AccessFirefox and other community efforts need and deserve
additional funding and resources from Mozilla then by all means submit
some proposed new language to revise the strategy.
tim o'brien
who do not use screen readers? This means making the visual interface
more accessible, customizable and extensible through add-ons and
themes. There are great add-ons out there like Accessibar, NoSquint,
Noise and Image Zoom as well as great themes like the HiVis family.
But not all of the Fifrefox interface is fully customizable for
accessibility.
1. Are there easier ways to accessibly condense toolbars? Toolbars eat
up very valuable screen space and VI users, like me, tend to have the
screen resolutions set very low and fonts/zoom high. I have done my
best to condense useful toolbars while maintaining sufficient
separation between items for icon/text identification. This is tricky
and in no way a user friendly operation.
2. Can Firefox become noisier? More precisely, can more Firefox events
be Noise-enabled? More audio interaction is easier on the eyes.
3. Can we make all colors customizable? Specifically, I am referring
to our earlier discussion of the spellchecker underline color, which
is hard-coded and whose fix is apparently either difficult or a low
priority (or both). There must be more of these idiosyncrasies that
could be identified and fixed.
4. Can Firefox offer some accessibility guidelines to third party
developers? Plug-in, add-on and theme developers could be made more
aware of accessibility issues when designing UIs. Options menus often
spill over the edges of low-res screens without scrollbars, etc. I
realize that most of these developers are volunteers, but a little
guidance could not hurt anyone.
5. Can Firefox zoom better? I love being able to control text and full
page zoom individually. I could not really access the internet without
these tools (and stay screen reader free). Yet some pages do not
respond well to zoom. This is probably a html issue, not a Firefox
one, but I do not know, so I ask. Many hover/popups (I do not know the
technical term) spill past screen edges with no way to read them
without reducing zoom. Along these lines, is there anything else that
Firefox could do to correct inaccessible web sites?
Food for thought...
tim o'brien
Jamal Mazrui
request for access to the Mozilla DOM via late-bound COM automation on
Windows. This would make it possible for usability enhancements to be
done via JAWS or Window-Eyes scripts. This is currently possible in IE
but not Firefox. I know several JAWS or Window-Eyes scripters who would
like this capability. Not being C++ programmers ourselves, we are not
able to contribute that capability to the Mozilla code base.
Regards,
Jamal
Luca
firefoxand thunderbird.
Trough Jaws scripts in jaws/wineows eyes one could do fantastic things
that enhance accessibility.
"Jamal Mazrui" <Jamal....@fcc.gov> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:mailman.5.1240349169....@lists.mozilla.org...
Frank Hecker
I don't mind you editing the page and adding the "education and
awareness" point. However I would like others to comment on this: Do you
think raising awareness about accessibility issues and educating others
should be a true top-level goal like the other three (ubiquitous AT,
accessible innovation, and integrating accessibility)? Or should
awareness efforts be integrated into one of the existing goals?
For example, I could see integrating awareness campaigns and educational
efforts into the "integrating accessibility" goal, with the primary aim
being to raise awareness among the general community of web developers.
Frank
Steve Lee wrote:
> I finally got round to adding something, just a top level bullet point.
> Having just read read your wording above you may not have wanted me to
> edit the wiki directly, so hope that's OK.
--
Frank Hecker
hec...@mozillafoundation.org
David Bolter
goal. Maybe we need to rethink the category name.
cheers,
David