Re: Forming an Accessibility Steering Committee

["Peter Parente" <parente gmail com>]

Back on the technical side of things, I haven't seen anyone mention
emerging tech and research in accessibility as topics of interest for
the committee. While the bleeding edge isn't as important as getting
accessibility working today for users who need it, it still warrants
attention for ensuring longevity and innovation in the GNOME
accessibility stack. For instance, some activities of the committee
might include:

1) Staying abreast of trends in technology to ensure GNOME
accessibility is prepared to handle the "next big thing." There's a
lot going on in the Web 2.0 / online desktop space. It would be nice
to have a leg up on accessibility matters when it begins to have a
large influence on the desktop and GNOME users.

2) Making sure infrastructure work doesn't preclude advancement. Most
times, platform improvements open doors to new and interesting uses.
Still, someone has to be wary of changes that force us to get stuck
doing only what we need today.

3) Brainstorming / developing improvements that push the envelope in
the user experience. It's great to have a set of familiar assistive
technologies for people to use today when migrating to GNOME from
other platforms. But a benefit of developing on an open stack with an
excellent (the best?) accessibility infrastructure is that it affords
us the opportunity to create alternative, better, more usable, (pick
an adjective) software to help users. Dasher is a perfect example:
born out of research and later packaged with GNOME releases as a new
"flavor" of on-screen keyboard.

Pete