iceshrimp.net - Link to source

Thought: if #open, #federated, and #distributed solutions were the most #accessible solutions, people with disabilities would be some of the biggest allies in pushing adoption. I already constantly have to get my friends, co-workers, etc, to switch tools for me. If we're working or playing together, the tool needs to be accessible if I'm involved. But unfortunately, that's almost never the case, and I find myself having to force my friends to switch away from open tools and into closed ones:
* Jitsi meet doesn't offer captions or transcripts, and still had an unlabeled button or two last I checked. So I usually have to force people working with me to switch to Zoom.
* github is still more accessible than Forgejo and codeberg, even with the recent regressions. So I won't contribute to projects that aren't on github.
* None of the existing Matrix clients offer good accessibility; they either lag, have unlabeled controls, the message list won't scroll, messages won't read as they come in, etc. So I have to force people onto Slack or Discord.
* Neither Only Office or Next Cloud offer a web interface that works for collaboration with screen readers, so I have to force people to use Google Docs.
* Linux accessibility remains a joke compared to Windows or mac.

And on and on it goes. #opensource#fediverse#federation

#accessible #opensource #fediverse #federation #federated #open #distributed

reshared this

in reply to 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

akkoma - Link to source

Ander

yeah, that's one of the main issues Free Software will carry on for years. I suppose one of the main obvious causes is a lack of resources, but and also some reminiscency of this capitalist productivity ideology that mesures the value of a software by the number of features it haves and not by the actual value of them as a good for everyone. However, more recent tools like the fediverse have been generally built with accessibility in mind (or at least more that their closed-source competitors, as far as I know), I wish this becoomes the norm in long-therm. And also, as more disabled people start to use these tools, the better they will become (althogh the first ones will have to pass a rough time, and that's something nobody deserves).
in reply to Ander

iceshrimp.net - Link to source

🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

@ander_dapo A lot of this problem happens because, whatever we say about capitalism, it is really good at incentivizing individuals to do things they, personally, don't care about. In an open source product, you only get accessibility if that's someone's passion, and that person has the skills to submit directly to the codebase. Microsoft and Apple pay developers to do accessibility, so they can meet their legal obligations. It doesn't matter if the iMessage guy working on accessibility cares or not. It's a requirement, so he'll do it because he's being paid to do it. In open source, things only generally happen when someone is excited about them.
@Ander
in reply to 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

akkoma - Link to source

Ander

totally agree!
One of my last hopes here is for governments to start using free software tools and then realising what they lack from in therms of accessibility and implementing those features directly to comply with the standards. But well, maybe to much for what we are seeing governments doing regading tech last years 🙃

PS: Just a silly question, if you don't mind: did your screenreader read that emoji right? If so, what do they say: "upside down face" without marking it's an emoji?

in reply to Ander

iceshrimp.net - Link to source

🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

@ander_dapo It depends on my settings. I can have it skip all emoji, read them, skip if there are more than three, etc. The problem with government right now is that the closed source big tech products generally include enough absolute minimum accessibility to comply with the law, and the open source products do not. So if you’re a sales person for big tech, you have a huge advantage. You can bully government into buying your product, because it’s the only way they can avoid a lawsuit. So it’s a chicken and egg problem: governments don’t use open source tech because it’s not accessible, and it’s not accessible because governments don’t use it. I think the only way out of this is to get government to adopt open formats, open API’s, and open data. Then one employee could use the accessible solution, and the other could use the inaccessible open source solution. And everything would be compatible. And of course, governments won’t want to buy two software packages that do the same thing, so they’ll then start funding open source accessibility. Europe is slowly making progress in this way with Office products. First, they required Microsoft to fully support the ODF, Open Document FOrmat. Then, they started moving to LibreOffice, but employees who couldn’t work with it could stick with Microsoft Offfice and just save as ODF. Then LibreOffice started having more and more accessibility features. Now, slowly, blind folks are starting to begin dipping our toes into LibreOffice. Right now, complex features like track changes are still more accessible in Microsoft Word, so blind users can still go back to Word for complicated requirements. But for simpler documents, LibreOffice is fine these days. And we can test it out without giving up word entirely, so we’ll know when it becomes good enough.
@Ander
in reply to Ander

iceshrimp.net - Link to source

🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

@ander_dapo Also, I think that Microsoft’s famous “Developers, developers, developers!” Focus is another reason Windows is so accessible. Microsoft works hard to make VSCode work with screen readers. So a lot of accessibility solutions on Windows are developed by users, for users. The developer experience on Linux isn’t quite as nice, from what I understand. So you have fewer disabled Linux developers, so fewer Linux accessibility tools that really work.
@Ander
in reply to Ander

iceshrimp.net - Link to source

🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

@ander_dapo Why is that sad? Assuming they get the same compensation as a sighted developer, I would prefer that the person working on the accessibility tools I use every day was also blind. Not only is it a good job for a fellow person with a disability, but they also know and understand the needs of other blind people better than anyone else ever could.
@Ander
in reply to 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

akkoma - Link to source

Ander

yes, yes, maybe I expressed myself incorrectly, what you said is totally true. What I wanted to point out is that it is sad that solely disabled people have the energy and time to care about that kind of things. Specially, as happends with free software, when people doesn't have the monetary incentive to implement these features.
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
⇧