Maximizing Accessibility: Engaging People With Disabilities in the Linux Community Spencer Hunley State of Accessibility in Linux: Past ● CLIs ● Primitive GUIs ● Improvements with GNOME 2 and KDE enviroments Linux State of Accessibility: Present ● Lots of apps, lots of abandoned/ deprecated projects ● Unity and GNOME 3 okay, but far from ideal or optimal ● Accessibility largely an afterthought Linux State of Accessibility: Future ● The Sonar Project ● Vinux ● Adriane Knoppix ● Voice Control ● Speech-to-Text The Confinement Cycle Needs money to buy Assistive Technology device Person with a disability Needs a job to become independent and earn money Needs Assistive Needs job to earn Technology device money for purchase to do job How Linux Can Break This Cycle ● Cost – Less expensive options for hardware and software ● Greater ability to customize and configure the system to person-centered specifics ● Grows with the person Rollin' With The Changes: How To Improve Accessibility ● Simple changes build to substantial improvements ● Build upon what is already in the Linux ecosystem ● Accessibility benefits your entire user base People With Disabilities: A Largely Untapped Linux Userbase ● Thorough bug finding and beta testing ● Real-world usability trials ● Growing pool of loyal users with fresh ideas and perspectives Further Information Americans with Disabilities Act: http://www.ada.gov/ Assistive Technology Industry Association: http://www.atia.org/ Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America: http://resna.org/ GNOME Universal Access: https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/a11y.html Fedora Accessibility Guide: http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/16/html/Accessibility_Guide/index.html Vinux Project: http://vinuxproject.org/ Sonar Project: http://sonar-project.org/ Adriane Knoppix: Spencer Hunley http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-adriane/index-en.html [email protected].