Re: GNOME A11y: where do we need to improve? (Want input by 25-Jan)

["Steve Lee" <steve fullmeasure co uk>]

On 21/01/2008, Francesco Fumanti <francesco fumanti gmx net> wrote:
> There is dasher that is reputed to have a good prediction engine; but
> it seems to lack the possibilities to control the desktop.

I understand that Dasher has a control mode, but I'm not clear on if
it is experimental as there is nothing obvious in the version I have
installed via the Ubuntu repositories.

> There is gok, which seems to be rather targeted at users that can not
> efficiently use the pointer. It has word completion without word
> prediction. The keyboard is not resizable,...

Without wanting to answer for the GOK team I think I heard there may
have once been an investigation into prediction.

What features are needed that GOK does not have in its main OSK? Is it
simply they way it starts up and having a simple OSK appear would be
what you prefer?

> Cheap Head Mice? The adaptive Headpointers that I know of, use
> special reference items weird by the user to track his movement. I
> wonder whether a simple camera (webcam) working without a reference
> item can be accurate enough to use it as headpointer. Does anybody
> have any experience with "reference-less" headpointing?

No but I have seen demos of head tracking with simple webcams without
reflective dots on foreheads if that is what you mean? There has been
discussion of webcam-based eyetracking over at www.oatsoft.org,
including combining it with headtracking to improve accuracy.

> About writing drivers for headpointers: do you have any headpointers
> in mind? Some headpointers (usually the more expensive models)
> present themselves as a normal mouse to the computer and consequently
> should work with the mouse driver shipped by the operating: this has
> the advantage of not requiring a specific driver (and maybe the
> disadvantage of not being customizable).

I guess that is the usual hardware/software tradeoff. Perhaps the USB
standard  ensures all conforming devices can be covered with standard
drivers?

> Another point I am wondering about: Am I right when I think that
> there is a standard about making the computer accessible for users
> that can only use the keyboard!? If it is true, maybe that a standard
> for people that can only use the mouse (with and without buttons)
> could also be useful.

AFAIK the keyboard standards are to ensure that application authors
add complete and standardised keyboard access as it is their job to do
so. For pointer access I think there is less of an issue as it is
generally predefined by OS / UI tookits used and extra accessibility
options like dwell click are features of system or device drivers. So
there should be operating/window systems guidelines rather than
application guidelines. There is a need for guidelines for custom
widget use of pointer.

-- 
Steve Lee
--
Jambu - Alternative Access to Computers
www.fullmeasure.co.uk