[Libreoffice-ux-advise] [libreoffice-accessibility] keyboard accessibility of new template manager - fdo#61390

[V Stuart Foote]

From: Markus Mohrhard [markus.mohrhard at googlemail.com]
Sent: Friday, March 08, 2013 3:13 AM

>Thanks a lot for your effort rising awareness of these problems. If
>you think it is a general problem that we are not paying enough
>attention on accessibility support in new dialogs it would be nice if
>you could give us some examples so that we can discuss how we can
>improve our workflow in the future.

Markus,

I will try to do exactly that and find an appropriate spot on the Wiki to clarify design and development requirements for support of Assistive Technologies and accessibility, probably with some linkage to standards work of the cognizant organizations.

In the meanwhile, testing and understanding requirements for including accessibility is well within the grasp of ANY developer or user of LibreOffice--we just don't think about it.

Here is my simple guide--and I am not being flippant--this is a reasonable demonstration.
 
So, if on a GNOME Linux, activate ORCA, on Windows JAWS or NVDA, on OSX VoiceOver--then launch LibreOffice.

Now close your eyes (or put on a blind fold) and try to write a document--I won't suggest a spreadsheet, or presentation, or even an illustration although why not?

How does that work for you? Is the new Template Manager effective?

If we are meeting our responsibilities as supporters of LibreOffice--developers, designers, QA, even users--we should be equally effective working with the Assistive Technologies support exposed with UNO Accessibility API as with moving a cursor with a mouse.  Anything less and we are not meeting our responsibilities. If the GUI can not be made to talk, and does not follow reasonable hierarchical structures AT support falters. 

Put another way, if we can not drive the interface without peeking, how is someone who does not have that option to cope?  

Additionally, think of the challenge if you can not point with a mouse or type on the keyboard, are we helping those users.

Stuart

Cross posting to the devs, and accessibility lists, so apologize now to all who receive multiple copies of this post. And again this is not intended to be flippant response, I am simply asking folks to consider accessibility aspect of their individual design and development efforts.