[17:30] <ClassBot> Logs for this session will be available at http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2011/06/17/%23ubuntu-classroom.html following the conclusion of the session.
[17:33] <Pendulum> Hiya! Sorry, had a slight organizational confusion
[17:34] <Pendulum> I'm Penelope Stowe, I'm the Community Accessibility team lead. Which mostly means I do non-devel accessibility stuff
[17:35] <Pendulum> with me is Charlie Kravetz ( charlie-tca ) who pretty much runs accessibility testing within the community
[17:36]  * charlie-tca waves
[17:36] <Pendulum> As a team the Accessibility team is a mix of people. Running development is Luke Yelavich (I think I spelled that correctly ;-) ) at Canonical
[17:37] <Pendulum> Otherwise we're mostly a group of community members trying to improve accessibility and advocate for it within Ubuntu
[17:38] <Pendulum> We do focus on Ubuntu rather than the other 'flavours' such as Kubuntu or Xubuntu, however, we welcome anyone to come talk to us and help. For example, Charlie is also the Xubuntu Project Lead :-)
[17:39] <Pendulum> So now that you know a little about us and what we do, I think it's probably a good time to start asking for questions!
[17:42] <ClassBot> AlanBell asked: what bits of Ubuntu are not yet accessible?
[17:43] <Pendulum> Well, as of this very moment Unity is not fully accessible, although it's getting closer.
[17:43] <Pendulum> things Ubuntu has are: screen reader, screen magnification, and on screen keyboard.
[17:43] <Pendulum> The biggest thing it's missing is voice control and voice recognition, however, those are larger issues within the Linux and free software community
[17:44] <charlie-tca> Unity is great for the keyboard user, most items in it are fully accessible with shortcut keys
[17:44] <charlie-tca> http://askubuntu.com/questions/28086/unity-keyboard-mouse-shortcuts/28087#28087
[17:47] <ClassBot> AlanBell asked: what accessibility applications are there in Ubuntu?
[17:48] <Steppy> I am having trouble getting my minidisk player to work under ubuntu. It is plugged into the pcs line in port. Under windows I had this set up so it would play through the pc speakers and not ned it's own
[17:48] <dasupergamer> ask that in #ubuntu
[17:48] <charlie-tca> There are by default in Ubuntu, Onboard Keyboard
[17:49] <charlie-tca> and mousetweaks
[17:49] <charlie-tca> The libraries to run the screen reader are also installed by default
[17:50] <charlie-tca> Any user may install Orca, which is the gnome screen-reader. You can also install Dasher, which is a typing application used with a mouse
[17:51] <charlie-tca> We also have several themes designed for accessibility. both low contrast and high contrast themes, and of course any user can increase font sizes
[17:51] <charlie-tca> pe
[17:52] <charlie-tca> Did I miss anything?
[17:52] <Pendulum> I think that's pretty much what's at least easy to access and use :)
[17:52] <ClassBot> dasupergamer asked: In terms of Accessibility whats does Ubuntu have over other linux distro's and windows and mac
[17:53] <charlie-tca> I think the answer to this question lies in how Unity is designed
[17:53] <charlie-tca> Unity allows a user to navigate the entire desktop with a mouse, if desired.
[17:54] <charlie-tca> It also allows the same user to not use the mouse, if need be. With the keyboard shortcuts in Unity, one can navigate almost everything.
[17:54] <charlie-tca> No other Linux distribution allows this, to the best of my knowledge
[17:55] <charlie-tca> As for Windows and Mac, I don' t use either one, and could not tell you if there is any advantage.
[17:55] <Pendulum> Well, an advantage in the past that is still somewhat there is cost
[17:56] <charlie-tca> I do know that speech synthesis in Linux is less advanced than in proprietary operating systems.
[17:56] <Pendulum> Orca is free, whereas the major Windows screenreader JAWS is about $1000
[17:57] <Pendulum> Unfortunately, where Linux does take a hit in accessibility is voice recognition. But that's very much a larger issue than Ubuntu and projects like julius and CMUSphinx (and it's library) are working hard to correct it. Bot of those, by the way, are availible in the Ubuntu repositories :-)
[17:59] <Pendulum> Anyone else with questions?
[18:00] <charlie-tca> I would like to take a minute here and say that although the Accessibility Team is small, we have a loud voice in Ubuntu.
[18:00] <charlie-tca> We would like to be able to help every flavour with accessibility, unfortunately, our time is limited.
[18:00] <charlie-tca> This makes accessibity within Ubuntu our priority.
[18:03] <charlie-tca> We strive to keep accessibility within Ubuntu in the forefront as much as possible.
[18:05] <ClassBot> Winterpeg asked: Are there any universal design guidelines for Ubuntu developers? How do you communicate those guidelines? Thank you.
[18:06] <Pendulum> We don't have any set guidelines for Ubuntu yet, however, the guidelines that the Gnome Accessibility team has are quite good
[18:06] <Pendulum> they can be found at: http://live.gnome.org/Accessibility/Developers
[18:07] <Pendulum> The Ubuntu Accessibility team has also been putting together personas for both developers and designers to give them additional points to think about
[18:08] <Pendulum> the personas done so far can be found at: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Accessibility/Personas
[18:12] <ClassBot> dasupergamer asked: Gnome was a very good GUI. But why switch to Unity. It doesn't make Ubuntu any more friendly to people who use tablets and such?
[18:12] <charlie-tca> I will attempt to answer this.
[18:13] <charlie-tca> Unity was started some time ago. It was known as Ubuntu Netbook in 10.10, I believe. It actually started to come together a year or so before that.
[18:14] <charlie-tca> At that time, gnome 3 was still an unknown.
[18:14] <charlie-tca> After putting in a lot of time and effort to make unity, there was no good reason to not use it, even when Gnome3 was announced.
[18:15] <charlie-tca> Unity is a fantastic idea, if you think about it. Full accessibility, the same interface on any computer, netbook, notebook, desktop, palm!
[18:16] <charlie-tca> No more learning many different keystrokes and mouse gestures for each system
[18:16] <charlie-tca> A chance to make a linux distribution that everyone can use and become familiar with easily.
[18:19] <charlie-tca> Unity is simply another shell for gnome, and gnome is still the underlying environment
[18:20] <ClassBot> dasupergamer asked: What about Speech Recognition?
[18:20] <ClassBot> There are 10 minutes remaining in the current session.
[18:20] <Pendulum> Right now Speech Recognition in open source across the board is lacking
[18:21] <Pendulum> there are projects such as julius and CMUSphinx working on it, but it's still mostly not at a usable level
[18:22] <Pendulum> both the libraries for Julius and for CMUSphinx are in the Ubuntu repositories
[18:23] <Pendulum> so you can install and play with them, however, it's not really to a level that can be used daily
[18:23] <Pendulum> As well, in the past people have managed to get Dragon Naturally Speaking to work under Wine, but I'm not sure it's been possible recently
[18:24] <ClassBot> dasupergamer asked: How does Ubuntu 11.04 feel like on tablet PCs due to there touch screens rather than the standar keyboard and mouse?
[18:24] <charlie-tca> As far as accessibiliut
[18:25] <charlie-tca> As far as accessibility, touch screens work great for those with good hand movements
[18:25] <ClassBot> There are 5 minutes remaining in the current session.
[18:25] <charlie-tca> Ubuntu 11.04 should work on those quite well, even though touch is not perfected yet, and depends somewhat on the actual hardware.
[18:26] <ClassBot> AlanBell asked: what help do you need to make accessibility better?
[18:26] <Pendulum> More people, mostly.
[18:27] <ClassBot> dasupergamer asked: What is the best way of using Ubuntu. Speech, Touch, Keyboard and Mouse?
[18:28] <charlie-tca> Each person has to decide this on their own. For some of us, it depends on what parts of the body are working.
[18:28] <charlie-tca> If a person has no arm movement, touch screens are harder to use
[18:28] <charlie-tca> If you are deaf, speech is not usable
[18:28] <charlie-tca> etc...
[18:29] <charlie-tca> Unity tries to make all of these things usable, which is very helpful for those who need different hardware to use the computer.
[18:30] <ClassBot> Logs for this session will be available at http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2011/06/17/%23ubuntu-classroom.html
[18:30] <Pendulum> Thank you everyone for coming!
[18:30] <Pendulum> We can be found in #ubuntu-accessibility
[18:31] <Pendulum> and are more than happy to answer any other questions there!
[18:39] <nigelb> ..
[18:39] <nigelb> .
[18:39] <nigelb> hat removed
[19:58] <nd456> hi