Re: gnome a11y documentation Re: Forming an Accessibility Steering Committee

[Willie Walker <William Walker Sun COM>]

Hi Don:

> Just to point out that GNOME accessibility guide 2.20.1 got a huge
> makeover (care of the Ubuntu doc team) and is slightly more up-to-date
> now :)  If you're talking about this, please use 2.20.1 as a base.

You're awesome!  Thanks!  I'm assuming the new guide is here:

http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/stable/index.html.en

If so, it looks pretty good and thanks for your efforts on it.  After a 
quick look, I see some sections that need updating.  For example, the 
accessible login stuff still refers to the Gnopernicus srcore executable 
instead of Orca:

http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/stable/sysadmin-30.html.en

There's also overlap between this and the gdm docs:

http://www.gnome.org/projects/gdm/docs/2.20/accessibility.html

Plus, the links for Orca are also missing:

http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/stable/ats-2.html.en

Content for the Orca pages can be cobbled from these pages, or the 
content could just refer to them, allowing the Orca team to continually 
and quickly update the pages as Orca evolves:

http://live.gnome.org/Orca/ConfigurationUse
http://live.gnome.org/Orca/ConfigurationGui

On a higher level, I think we need to take a bigger picture view of the 
GNOME a11y documentation and consider a big refactor/reset -- it's 
currently spread out over a number of places, with many of these places 
being somewhat outdated and/or unorganized.

What I'd like to see is a main 'jumping off' spot that developers, 
future contributors, and users can start with and then easily end up 
getting to the information they want.  I'd propose that this place is 
the WIKI (http://live.gnome.org/GAP or perhaps a page with a more 
intuitive name http://live.gnome.org/Accessibility).

I'd also propose that we "clean house": get rid of all the old stuff 
and/or clearly mark it as being an archive.  In addition, we should 
strive to eliminate overlap as much as possible.  We've had a number of 
problems, for example, where people have ended up on AT-SPI 
documentation that is not accurate, mostly because there seem to be a 
number of pages that have been created over time.

I think this kind of work really needs a good writer with a good sense 
of how to organize and wordsmith the content.  With this proposed 
refactor, I'd like for a writer to not only help do the work, but also 
help us devise a clear plan for how to maintain the pages and how/where 
new documentation should be added.  For example, assuming a new 
assistive technology comes along (e.g., MouseKeys), I'd like to see a 
plan for how its end user and developer documentation can be quickly 
reached from the 'jumping off' spot.

If this makes sense, is this something you can help with?

Will