[libreoffice-accessibility] Re: ESC meeting minutes: 2022-05-26

Tue May 31 14:41:44 UTC 2022

A lot of toolbar widgets in Writer don't seem to be accessible, like the
ones to create forms and such.
Devin Prater
r.d.t.prater at gmail.com

On Tue, May 31, 2022 at 9:31 AM Christophe Strobbe <strobbe at hdm-stuttgart.de>
wrote:

> Hi Michael, Caolán, all,
>
> I don't have a comprehensive overview of LibreOffice UI accessibility
> either, unfortunately. However, if you are looking for ways to prioritise
> issues, one way may be based on the accessibility requirements in the ETSI
> standard EN 301 549, which defines the requirements that software,
> documents and a number of other IT products will need to fulfil in the EU
> starting June 2025. If you want the biggest bang for your buck, my
> recommendations are the following:
> (1) With regard to the UI, focus on Windows-based accessibility issues
> first, since that is where (a) the majority of people with disabilities are
> and (b) the version that is most likely to get audited if accessibility
> audits get done. (As a Linux user, I would also like GTK-related to get
> fixed, but I am not representative of the market.) With regard to
> applications, I would focus on Writer before Impress or Calc. (I don't know
> how often Base and Draw are used in professional contexts, if at all.)
> (2) With regard to document formats, continue improving PDF/UA conformance
> for exported PDF documents. PDF/UA conformance currently requires expensive
> extensions or plug-ins for Microsoft Office (Adobe Acrobat's PDF Maker
> plug-in has completely dropped the ball on PDF/UA) or Adobe InDesign.
> PDF/UA conformance in documents exported from Writer (and eventually also
> Impress) would be a strong selling point; there is currently no office
> suite that pulls this off natively. (Institutions that have been
> established to monitor compliance with the EU's Web Accessibility Directive
> often simply check for PDF/UA conformance as a substitute for a real
> accessibility check.)
>
> Best regards,
>
> Christophe Strobbe
>
>
> > On 31 May 2022 at 01:57 Michael Weghorn <m.weghorn at posteo.de> wrote:
> >
> >
> > On 30/05/2022 11.08, Caolán McNamara wrote:
> > > For a11y I don't know what is seen as the major problems, is there some
> > > fundamentally missing pieces (like in the past not having direct
> > > windows IAccessible2 support and needing a java access bridge). Or are
> > > the fundamentals ok and its a matter of a general malaise. Is the
> > > general widgetry ok, but particular components have poor document level
> > > a11y. Or is there an endless amount of fairly easy entry level problems
> > > that there isn't enough people to take care of.
> >
> > I don't have a comprehensive overview at this point.
> > At least from the little experience I have by now, I *tend to think*
> > it's mostly the latter, at least as far as root causes for the major
> > problems are concerned.
> > (I have also *heard* that Base seems to be most problematic in general,
> > but haven't had much to do with it myself yet.)
> >
> >  From what I have seen so far while looking at some a11y issues
> > affecting Windows and Linux (gtk3 and qt5/qt6 VCL plugins), the
> > fundamentals look fine, and it seems to be mostly that various smaller
> > issues in LO a11y code of the single components and the platform
> > integrations (and sometimes in other projects, like the NVDA screen
> > reader or the Qt library) cause a lack of a11y in the UI (lack of
> > usability with accessibility technology, like screen readers, e.g.
> > because not everything is announced) and documents (like a11y-related
> > attributes not being properly set in docs, in particular when exported
> > to other formats like OOXML, PDF, (X)HTML).
> >
> > The a11y meta bug tdf#101912 [1] currently lists ~200 specific issues.
> > (I also have a ranked list from Richard, CCed, a blind user who uses the
> > NVDA screen reader on Windows.)
> > Working on some issues requires some level of understanding/experience
> > with AT (accessibility technologies, like a screen reader), others (like
> > doc export to other formats) shouldn't.
> >
> > I don't know about the situation on macOS.
> >
> > IIUC, the gtk4 VCL plugin currently doesn't have an a11y implementation
> > yet, and there has been a change of how a11y is handled at least within
> > the Gtk library itself. [1]
> > @Caolán: Is that correct? And is it something you are planning to look
> > into at some point or something that should be covered otherwise?
> >
> >
> > I've added the accessibility mailing list; maybe others have further
> > insights to add here.
> >
> >
> > [1] https://blog.gtk.org/2020/10/21/accessibility-in-gtk-4/
> > [2]
> >
> https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Budget2022#Fix_accessibility_issues
> >
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