This page collects several projects, resources and links on free software accessibility.
How to make applications accessible?
Because “One person out of ten consider having a handicap, but one person out of five consider being limited it her activitie”, “15% of the world's population lives with some form of disability”, Laws require accessibility.
Or rather, how to make accessible applications? This section gathers links to documentation and videos talking about it. The idea is that ideally you should not have to focus on accessibility features, but just integrate in your development process good practices which improve accessibility: in a couple of words, simple and logical design, instead of complex and graphical design, and configurability.
Accessibility Howto
There is a guide. It is a bit old, but it still gives a good idea of the needs.
Gnome has its own guide.
KDE has its own guide.
Qt5 has a guide for QWidget and a guide for Qt Quick.
There is also a good LinuxJournal article.
So as to check how good your graphical application looks like, you can try Accerciser.
There is guide for text applications for testing accessibility of text applications.
For GULs, there is a page from the wiki.
For making an Linux installer accessible, there is a page from the wiki.
Talks
How to make applications accessible? at LSM 2010 (40' video, slides).
How does software accessibility work? at LSM 2014 (40' video, slides and transcript).
Designing accessible applications, FOSDEM 2016, (15' video, same video with better sound, slides and transcript).
Why not extending non-regression tests to accessibility matter? at LSM 2017 (slides.
Maintaining accessibility through testing?, FOSDEM 2018, (PDF slides and ODP slides).
More documentation and talks
Documentations, wikis
Debian has three wiki pages:
Freedesktop: Accessibility principles in X11/Wayland
Talks about accessibility
A series of talks about accessibility have been recorded at LSM, FOSDEM, GHM (GNU Hackers Meeting), Debconf (Debian Conference), XDC (X.Org Developer's Conference):
- Development
- How to make applications accessible? (en, Samuel Thibault), LSM 2010
- Mechanisms for accessibility (en, Samuel Thibault), LSM 2010
- GPII: Anywhere Accessibility through Cloud-Based Auto-Personalisation (en, Christophe Strobbe, Javier Hernández), LSM 2013
- How does software accessibility work? (en, Samuel Thibault), LSM 2014
- Cloud4all et GPII : L’accessibilité partout grâce à une personalisation automatique de type cloud (en, Christophe Strobbe, Javier Hernández), LSM 2015
- Where does accessibility plug into the graphical desktop stack? (en, Samuel Thibault), XDC 2014, Slides in ODP, PDF, HTML, and transcript of the talk and discussion.
- Why not extending non-regression tests to accessibility matter? (en, Samuel Thibault), LSM 2017
- Distributions
- How accessible is Debian? (en, Samuel Thibault), FOSDEM 2008, Slides, html version, video, audio, text
- Comment adapter une distribution Linux pour personnes déficientes visuelles (fr, David Casson), RMLL 2012
- Making an oriented-accessibility GNU/Linux Distribution (fr, Jean-Philippe Mengual), RMLL 2013
- Supporting accessibility in your distribution (en, Samuel Thibault), FOSDEM 2015, Slides
- Thanks for maintaing a desktop environment. But is it accessible? (en, Samuel Thibault), DebConf 2015, Slides, Slides html, Slides odp, Video, Transcript
- Designing accessible applications (en, Samuel Thibault), FOSDEM 2016, Slides
- Making Debian for everybody Video (en, Samuel Thibault), mini-debconf 2017, Slides, ODP
- Web
- Tanaguru: free software to improve websites! (fr, Matthieu Faure), LSM 2010
- Accessibility for print-impaired (en, T.B. Dinesh), LSM 2010
- Produire une vidéo libre et accessible sur le Web, c’est possible ! (fr, Armony Altinier), LSM 2015
- L’accessibilité dans la formation en ligne (en, Christophe Strobbe), LSM 2015
- Lutèce, un CMF moderne pour répondre aux enjeux de l’e-administration (fr, Jon Harper Alexandre Mangot Cédric Marneux), LSM 2015
- Web Annotation Standard and the future Web (en, T. B. Dinesh), LSM 2017
- Documents, design
- Creating Barrier-free PDF Documents. Invisible Handicaps. (en, Frank Hofmann), LSM 2010
- The AcceDe project. Accessibility and PDF, an open diffusion of knowledge by private firms (fr, Sébastien Delorme), LSM 2010
- Créer des documents accessibles, DAISY et Braille avec OpenOffice.org et LibreOffice Writer (en, Christophe Strobbe), LSM 2011
- Creating Accessible Documents with LibreOffice/OpenOffice Writer (en, Christophe Strobbe), LSM 2013
- Accessible graphic charters for everybody! (fr, Armony Altinier), LSM 2014
- Sub-titling, transcription, audiodescription: making a video accessible (fr, Marie-Pierre Bijon), LSM 2014
- Open Path View l’alternative libre à Google Street View (fr, Benjamin Bernard Arnaud Reungoat), LSM 2015
- La création de documents pédagogiques avec Scenari (fr, Stéphane Poinsart), LSM 2015
- Hardware, DIY
- Toward a 'free' braille device? (en, Mario Lang), LSM 2010
- How free software can make portable devices (even more) useful for visually impaired persons (fr, Sébastien Hinderer), LSM 2010
- LSM2011 radio2, accessibilité audio libre (fr)
- Audition et Logiciels Libres (fr, Marie-Pierre Bijon), LSM 2012
- Hearing and Free Software (fr, Marie-Pierre Bijon), LSM 2013
- Audio-Tactile drawing in schools : the HIPP program (fr, Delphine Szymczak), LSM 2013
- A FOSS alternative to audio protheses: managing one's handicap in DIY mode (fr, Marie-Pierre Bijon), LSM 2014
- Les aides auditives libres (fr, Marie-Pierre Bijon et Matthieu Berjon), LSM 2015
- Usage
- Pourquoi les aveugles devraient être parano ? (fr, Sébastien Hinderer), LSM 2010
- How blind people play games? (en, Mario Lang), LSM 2010
- Teleparticipation to practice lession. Application to access to all lessons for handicaped students (fr, François Demontoux), LSM 2010
- Géo Campus : géolocalisation sous Android pour les personnes à mobilité réduite (fr, David Casson), LSM 2012
- Cooking Braille in your kitchen... (en, Timothy Hobbs), LSM 2012
- Utilisation de la distribution Debian en mode graphique avec Orca et sans assistance braille (fr, Sylvain Grille), LSM 2012
- Mail2Voice: an accessibility approach to mail (fr, Laurent Claude, Matthieu Hazon), LSM 2014
- Internet liberated me: feedback from a user with low vision (fr, Irina Lambla), LSM 2014
- Feedback on Dolibarr: managing an organization while being blind (fr, Jean-Philippe Menugal), LSM 2014
- Visual impairment: its impact on security (en, Sébastien Hinderer), LSM 2014
- Visually-impaired developers: our possibilities and difficulties (fr, Sébastien Hinderer, Irina Lambla), LSM 2014
- Mail2Voice et vos e-mails ont la parole (fr, Laurent Claude), LSM 2017
- Politics
- LSM2011 radio, APRIL accessibilité (fr)
- Interfaces for blind users, what could be the future (en, Jean-Philippe Mengual), LSM 2012
- L'accessibilité, un travail d'équipe (fr, Jean-Philippe Mengual), LSM 2012
- Accessibilité et logiciel libre, l'union fait la force ! (fr, Armony Altinier), LSM 2012
- Freedom 0, how about talking about it? (fr, Armony Altinier), LSM 2013
- Freedom #0 for everybody, really? (en, Samuel Thibault, Jean-Philippe Mengual), GHM 2013, Slides in ODP, PDF, HTML, and transcript of the talk and discussion
- Issues and notebook so that opensource won't be a step back in integration (fr, Jean-Philippe Mengual), LSM 2014
- Accessibility, a question of freedom (fr, Armony Altinier), LSM 2014
- Accessibility, an expanding market: FOSS actors, get ready! (fr, Armony Altinier), LSM 2014
- Digital accessibility, survey of legal obligations for public institutions in France (fr, Armony Altinier), LSM 2014
- La route est longue mais la voie est accessible… (fr, kinou), LSM 2015
- Pourquoi développer un bureau souple (fr, Jean-Philippe Mengual), LSM 2015
- Pas de liberté sans accessibilité ! (fr, Armony Altinier), LSM 2015
- Créer une véritable chaîne de travail sur un domaine grand public : l’exemple de l’accessibilité (fr, Jean-Philippe Mengual Samuel Thibault), LSM 2017
- Défendre le libre par une lutte sectorielle : l’exemple de la déficience visuelle (fr, Jean-Philippe Mengual), LSM 2017
- Et si le développement du logiciel libre était d’abord une affaire de sciences humaines ? (fr, Jean-Philippe Mengual), LSM 2017
Complete lists, included non-recorded ones:
- LSM 2008
- LSM 2009
- LSM 2010
- LSM 2011
- LSM 2012
- LSM 2013
- Freedom #0 for everybody, really?, GHM 2013, Slides in ODP, PDF, HTML, and transcript of the talk and discussion
- LSM 2014
- Where does accessibility plug into the graphical desktop stack?, XDC 2014, Slides in ODP, PDF, HTML, and transcript of the talk and discussion.
- LSM 2015
- Supporting accessibility in your distribution, FOSDEM 2015, Slides
- Thanks for maintaing a desktop environment. But is it accessible?, DebConf 2015, Slides, Slides html, Slides odp, Video, Transcript
- Designing accessible applications, FOSDEM 2016, Slides
- LSM 2017
- Making Debian for everybody, mini-debconf 2017, Slides, ODP
Slides
Slides of a presentation done at the Villette, general introduction to accessibility (in French)
Slides of a presentation for a round table, software accessibility: alternative solutions for visually-impaired people (in French), HTML version.
Articles about accessibility
Tools for accessibility
Accessibility Howto
There is a guide. It is quite old, but it still provides ideas.
Gnome has its own guide.
BrlAPI
Available in BRLTTY, BrlAPI is a way for your applications or screen readers to easily output braille without having to tackle all the nasty technical details, through the use of a library which forwards the braille output to the BRLTTY daemon. See the documentation of latest stable version and the reference manual
.
NEW: in the new release (0.5.0), BrlAPI has Python, Java, Tcl, OCaml and CLisp bindings!
BrlAPI is already used by leading screen readers like Gnopernicus, Orca, LSR, NVDA, and Microsoft's Narrator Braille support.
Several programs were written for transferring files to/from braille devices:
- vstp for VisioBraille, included in brltty.
- Olivier Bert's TRF
Linux
A set of fonts/keyboard mappings for typing braille on the linux (>= 2.6.17rc1) console with regular keyboard.
Braille tables
You can find here some braille tables which don't seem to be supported by nowadays' screen readers.
Brltty for Windows and DOS
You can get some old Windows and DOS version of brltty here.
Free Braille Displays
Braille devices are expensive and non free, please join us on the Free Braille Display project.
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