Re: visual impairment focused design

[Janina Sajka <janina rednote net>]

Michal Koudelka writes:
> I need to make an application which is not just supposed to be accessible
> but designed specifically for people with visual impairment so it should
> rely heavily on using speech synthesiser and braille refreshable display.

Your conclusion does not follow from your premise. This is illogical,
i.e. you cannot assume that "people with visual impairment" all, or even
predominently use either braille or screen reader technology. Some do,
but it's actually a minority of users with visual impairments. There are
far many more individuals who use their remaining vision with some kind
of screen magnification, or even simply display attribute control.

I strongly suggest your revisit the user scenarios and requirements of
your application with your vendor. And, while doing so, you should
explore why you actually need to control UI at this level. Why is
following W3C guidance, specifically WCAG 2.0 and using ARIA 1.1 is
insufficient. Perhaps you can answer this already, but it's not clear to
me from your post that you've explored this. Frankly, I'm suspecting a
beginner's mistake here, which would serve neither your vendor nor your
userbase.

Also, are you writing exclusively for Linux? Or, are you unsure of how
to handle Linux in a cross-platform application? If the latter, all the
more reason to answer the questions above persuasively. The
W3C specs mentioned are carefully designed to support cross platform
content delivery and interaction. In the case of ARIA, they're even
reliably testable.

Tip: You might want to look at the latest draft of the ARIA Authoring
Practices Guide:
http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-practices/


I know I'm sounding critical, but I hope I'm actually helping you by
better defining your problem and refining your focus appropriately. Good
luck! We certainly do want more coders to be fluent with supporting a11y
in their apps appropriately.

Janina

-- 

Janina Sajka,   Phone:  +1.443.300.2200
                        sip:janina asterisk rednote net
                Email:  janina rednote net

Linux Foundation Fellow
Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:       http://a11y.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair, Accessible Platform Architectures        http://www.w3.org/wai/apa