Re: MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release]
Hello, Christian Schoepplein, on Sun 22 May 2016 22:48:09 +0200, wrote: > BTW., I'd like to give GNOME3 a try. But because I need my machine for > daily work it would be interesting if I can install the gnome packages > without making my MATE environment unuseable. Is this working? Yes. Just make sure to keep lightdm as DM, and it will let you choose between the MATE and gnome desktop at graphical login time. Samuel
Re: MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release]
Hi Mario, On 23-05-16 14:05, Mario Lang wrote: > I am quoting just one sentence, I hope it is clear why such > documentation material is absolutely useless to end users. > > Under the heading "Blindness", select "Read screen aloud". > > "Quickly turn Screen Reader on and off > >You can turn Screen Reader on and off by clicking the accessibility >icon in the top bar and selecting Screen Reader. > " I am not disputing your point, but I got curious and took a look. To be fair, only a few lines lower it says: " To access this menu using the keyboard rather than the mouse, press Ctrl+Alt+Tab to move the keyboard focus to the top bar. " Paul signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release]
Samuel Thibault, on Sun 22 May 2016 22:33:49 +0200, wrote: > Also, is there a guide for blind people new to gnome3, teaching how the > interface is working? If there is one, we need to point to it from > the debian accessibility wiki. Thinking again, I still wouldn't set gnome3 by default if it *requires* a user to read a guide to be able do a basic operation such as running an application. Samuel
Re: MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release]
On 5/22/2016 3:13 AM, Samuel Thibault wrote: Could blind people here comment on this: why you don't use gnome and prefer MATE instead? (or the converse of course, the idea is not to blame gnome, we just want to select by default what is best for users, according to their situation. Ideally we'd just say "pick whatever, they're all good"). I haven't tried Gnome 3 since shortly after it was released. I understand some of the issues have been addressed. I found it very confusing. With MATE and Windows, pressing Tab after I'm logged in should eventually get me to a desktop, menu or something useful but it doesn't. I think I was in Gnome Shell which had no speech. If I press the Super key, I think I land in a search area, but I could be thinking of Unity. I still have no obvious way of selecting what app to run. Pressing other random keys didn't seem to help, so I gave up. With Gnome 2, I had no problems at least navigating the desktop. I could press Tab and the arrows which would at least get me to the file explorer. Alt-F1 lands me in a menu which I can arrow through. I'm not saying that Gnome 3 must have a menu interface, but it would be helpful to have all installed apps in a list which can be navigated with the arrows and doesn't require guesswork to find. Since we're using Super-S to turn on the screen reader, maybe make it present a simplified interface with such a list available by pressing Tab after Orca comes up.
Re: MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release]
Luke Yelavich writes: > On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 06:33:49AM AEST, Samuel Thibault wrote: >> Mario Lang, on Sun 22 May 2016 21:56:00 +0200, wrote: >> > What I am trying to say is, if a desktop wants to provide Accessibility >> > that is actually useful to users, they will have to invest more time >> > into it then they currently are willing to do. >> >> Well, perhaps it's not a question of time, but of methodology. >> >> > * Do some real usability testing with blind users. >> >Unsupervised solo experiments do often lead to very vague and emotional >> > results. >> >> Yes, I'd say that's why the lack of precise feedback for gnome: users >> are simply lost in the new interface, and can't provide anything useful. >> >> I'm wondering: do gnome maintainers actually make real face-to-face >> testing with blind users? As Jean-Philippe Mengual said, there is a lot >> of work done on the technical side, perhaps it's just lacking actual >> testing with real users? I'd say it's perhaps unfair to suggest that >> gnome maintainers need to spend more time than they already do (I don't >> know if we know how much they do), and that the issue is rather that >> there is no face-to-face feedback? > > The GNOME design team is regularly working with maintainers to improve > application design. I have been thinking for a while now that someone who > knows Orca well, and who knows how keyboard interraction with widgets should > work, needs to get with the design team, and work out how keyboard navigation > should function with particular widgets, and the way they are layed out in > an application. Some of this work can probably be done within GTK itself, > but certainly most of the work would need doing in the applications. This > side would require someone who has a strong understanding of atk and GTK > interraction, go into the code, and implement the desired outcome for > keyboard navigation, as it is likely the app maintainer isn't sure how to > do that. > > GNOME as a whole is also doing away with menus, however I don't think > the equivalent keyboard access is known about widely, and if it is, its > obviously not usable enough, and work needs to be done, probably with the > design team to spec it out. > > I also think that the keyboard shortcuts for GNOME shell need investigating, > and maybe adding to. It is currently possible to get to the GNOME top > panel with Super + M, but that lands you in the message tray, and even > though you can get to the rest of the panel from there, its still a clunky > solution. Super + F10 works to get to the app menu, but you have to be in > an app for that to work, you cannot use it on the desktop. Thanks for this very accurate summary. I think you have given the best account of what is *actually* confusing people currently so far in this thread. +1 on everything you said. -- CYa, ⡍⠁⠗⠊⠕
Re: MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release]
On Mon, 23 May 2016, Mario Lang wrote: Date: Mon, 23 May 2016 08:05:30 From: Mario Lang To: Michael Biebl Cc: debian-accessibility@lists.debian.org, pkg-gnome-maintain...@lists.alioth.debian.org Subject: Re: MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release] Resent-Date: Mon, 23 May 2016 12:05:47 + (UTC) Resent-From: debian-accessibility@lists.debian.org Michael Biebl writes: Am 23.05.2016 um 00:30 schrieb Mario Lang: I would be very much interested in that. GNOME2 had nice things like a keyboard shortcut manual. That already brought you 50% down the road. ? blind people interact with a desktop. If you can write a guide which explains how to use GNOME3 without a mouse, I think you would go a *long* way towards an accessibility guide. Have you read https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/a11y.html.en Is this documentation insufficient or were you simply not aware of it? I was not aware of it *and* it looks rather insufficient. I am quoting just one sentence, I hope it is clear why such documentation material is absolutely useless to end users. Under the heading "Blindness", select "Read screen aloud". "Quickly turn Screen Reader on and off You can turn Screen Reader on and off by clicking the accessibility icon in the top bar and selecting Screen Reader. " This sounds like a bad joke, sorry. I am not going to dive further into this, it looks like a big waste of time. This sentences violates two principle at once: It shouldn't refer to icons, and it shouldn't refer to their physical location on a screen a blind user will never see. It is just a demonstration of the fact that at least some people in the upstream accessibility effort have absolutely not understood what accessibility is all about. It's too mousecentric too, all kinds of problems with that when I worked for D.O.D. too. --
Re: MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release]
On Mon, 23 May 2016, MENGUAL Jean-Philippe wrote: Date: Sun, 22 May 2016 18:00:59 From: MENGUAL Jean-Philippe To: Mario Lang , debian-accessibility@lists.debian.org, pkg-gnome-maintain...@lists.alioth.debian.org Subject: Re: MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release] Resent-Date: Mon, 23 May 2016 03:57:54 + (UTC) Resent-From: debian-accessibility@lists.debian.org Hi, I precise I'm ready to think with GNOME of way to help for face-to-face tests, regression tests, writing docs. But it implies a willing, a true choice, and time. So ... to be discussed. Regards, Le 22/05/2016 22:33, Samuel Thibault a ?crit : Mario Lang, on Sun 22 May 2016 21:56:00 +0200, wrote: What I am trying to say is, if a desktop wants to provide Accessibility that is actually useful to users, they will have to invest more time into it then they currently are willing to do. Well, perhaps it's not a question of time, but of methodology. * Do some real usability testing with blind users. Unsupervised solo experiments do often lead to very vague and emotional results. Yes, I'd say that's why the lack of precise feedback for gnome: users are simply lost in the new interface, and can't provide anything useful. I'm wondering: do gnome maintainers actually make real face-to-face testing with blind users? As Jean-Philippe Mengual said, there is a lot of work done on the technical side, perhaps it's just lacking actual testing with real users? I'd say it's perhaps unfair to suggest that gnome maintainers need to spend more time than they already do (I don't know if we know how much they do), and that the issue is rather that there is no face-to-face feedback? Also, is there a guide for blind people new to gnome3, teaching how the interface is working? If there is one, we need to point to it from the debian accessibility wiki. If there is none, then that's possibly simply what Jean-Philippe and Mario are lacking? One issue when introducing a completely different way to interact with the desktop, as gnome3 did, is that it introduces new concepts. These concepts are typically designed for sighted people first (I'm not saying that gnome3 did it this way, I don't know, I only guess that's probably how it happened), and are thus made to be intuitive for sighted people. Maintainers then forget that they are probably not intuitive for non-sighed people, and the new concepts thus *have* to be explained to them. And I'd say you can not write a guide explaining the new concepts without actually discussing face-to-face with a really blind user who never *saw* the new interface, so that he pinpoints the things which need to be explicited because they are not obvious when you can't see (and that you can not un-understand once you have understood them, and thus would forget to mention them). That "freshman" step is required, I believe. Samuel One possible venu for initial connections to be made might be what Linux User's Groups exist. I have no idea how many of these have ever had a blind person attend meetings or how many have had or now have blind long-term members but it may be worth a little research. > > --
Re: MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release]
Michael Biebl writes: > Am 23.05.2016 um 00:30 schrieb Mario Lang: >> I would be very much interested in that. >> GNOME2 had nice things like a keyboard shortcut manual. That already >> brought you 50% down the road. > > … > >> blind people interact with a desktop. If you can write a guide which >> explains how to use GNOME3 without a mouse, I think you would go a >> *long* way towards an accessibility guide. > > Have you read > https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/a11y.html.en > > Is this documentation insufficient or were you simply not aware of it? I was not aware of it *and* it looks rather insufficient. I am quoting just one sentence, I hope it is clear why such documentation material is absolutely useless to end users. Under the heading "Blindness", select "Read screen aloud". "Quickly turn Screen Reader on and off You can turn Screen Reader on and off by clicking the accessibility icon in the top bar and selecting Screen Reader. " This sounds like a bad joke, sorry. I am not going to dive further into this, it looks like a big waste of time. This sentences violates two principle at once: It shouldn't refer to icons, and it shouldn't refer to their physical location on a screen a blind user will never see. It is just a demonstration of the fact that at least some people in the upstream accessibility effort have absolutely not understood what accessibility is all about. -- CYa, ⡍⠁⠗⠊⠕
Re: MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release]
On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 06:33:49AM AEST, Samuel Thibault wrote: > Mario Lang, on Sun 22 May 2016 21:56:00 +0200, wrote: > > What I am trying to say is, if a desktop wants to provide Accessibility > > that is actually useful to users, they will have to invest more time > > into it then they currently are willing to do. > > Well, perhaps it's not a question of time, but of methodology. > > > * Do some real usability testing with blind users. > >Unsupervised solo experiments do often lead to very vague and emotional > > results. > > Yes, I'd say that's why the lack of precise feedback for gnome: users > are simply lost in the new interface, and can't provide anything useful. > > I'm wondering: do gnome maintainers actually make real face-to-face > testing with blind users? As Jean-Philippe Mengual said, there is a lot > of work done on the technical side, perhaps it's just lacking actual > testing with real users? I'd say it's perhaps unfair to suggest that > gnome maintainers need to spend more time than they already do (I don't > know if we know how much they do), and that the issue is rather that > there is no face-to-face feedback? The GNOME design team is regularly working with maintainers to improve application design. I have been thinking for a while now that someone who knows Orca well, and who knows how keyboard interraction with widgets should work, needs to get with the design team, and work out how keyboard navigation should function with particular widgets, and the way they are layed out in an application. Some of this work can probably be done within GTK itself, but certainly most of the work would need doing in the applications. This side would require someone who has a strong understanding of atk and GTK interraction, go into the code, and implement the desired outcome for keyboard navigation, as it is likely the app maintainer isn't sure how to do that. GNOME as a whole is also doing away with menus, however I don't think the equivalent keyboard access is known about widely, and if it is, its obviously not usable enough, and work needs to be done, probably with the design team to spec it out. I also think that the keyboard shortcuts for GNOME shell need investigating, and maybe adding to. It is currently possible to get to the GNOME top panel with Super + M, but that lands you in the message tray, and even though you can get to the rest of the panel from there, its still a clunky solution. Super + F10 works to get to the app menu, but you have to be in an app for that to work, you cannot use it on the desktop. Luke
Re: MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release]
Hi, I precise I'm ready to think with GNOME of way to help for face-to-face tests, regression tests, writing docs. But it implies a willing, a true choice, and time. So ... to be discussed. Regards, Le 22/05/2016 22:33, Samuel Thibault a écrit : > Mario Lang, on Sun 22 May 2016 21:56:00 +0200, wrote: >> What I am trying to say is, if a desktop wants to provide Accessibility >> that is actually useful to users, they will have to invest more time >> into it then they currently are willing to do. > > Well, perhaps it's not a question of time, but of methodology. > >> * Do some real usability testing with blind users. >>Unsupervised solo experiments do often lead to very vague and emotional >> results. > > Yes, I'd say that's why the lack of precise feedback for gnome: users > are simply lost in the new interface, and can't provide anything useful. > > I'm wondering: do gnome maintainers actually make real face-to-face > testing with blind users? As Jean-Philippe Mengual said, there is a lot > of work done on the technical side, perhaps it's just lacking actual > testing with real users? I'd say it's perhaps unfair to suggest that > gnome maintainers need to spend more time than they already do (I don't > know if we know how much they do), and that the issue is rather that > there is no face-to-face feedback? > > Also, is there a guide for blind people new to gnome3, teaching how the > interface is working? If there is one, we need to point to it from > the debian accessibility wiki. If there is none, then that's possibly > simply what Jean-Philippe and Mario are lacking? One issue when > introducing a completely different way to interact with the desktop, > as gnome3 did, is that it introduces new concepts. These concepts > are typically designed for sighted people first (I'm not saying that > gnome3 did it this way, I don't know, I only guess that's probably how > it happened), and are thus made to be intuitive for sighted people. > Maintainers then forget that they are probably not intuitive for > non-sighed people, and the new concepts thus *have* to be explained to > them. And I'd say you can not write a guide explaining the new concepts > without actually discussing face-to-face with a really blind user who > never *saw* the new interface, so that he pinpoints the things which > need to be explicited because they are not obvious when you can't see > (and that you can not un-understand once you have understood them, and > thus would forget to mention them). That "freshman" step is required, I > believe. > > Samuel > > -- Jean-Philippe MENGUAL HYPRA, progressons ensemble Tél.: 01 84 73 06 61 Mail: cont...@hypra.fr Site Web: http://hypra.fr
Re: MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release]
Mario Lang, on Mon 23 May 2016 00:30:49 +0200, wrote: > And, I also question intuitivity: If such documentation is necessary, > the system isn't really inherently "accessible" from a usability > stand-point. Put in other words, why is such documentation even > necessary. Well, just like it was necessary to learn the basic GUI elements: a window, a menu, a button. None of these were intuitive when coming from MS-DOS CLI. Samuel
Re: MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release]
Am 23.05.2016 um 00:30 schrieb Mario Lang: > I would be very much interested in that. > GNOME2 had nice things like a keyboard shortcut manual. That already > brought you 50% down the road. … > blind people interact with a desktop. If you can write a guide which > explains how to use GNOME3 without a mouse, I think you would go a > *long* way towards an accessibility guide. Have you read https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/a11y.html.en Is this documentation insufficient or were you simply not aware of it? -- Why is it that all of the instruments seeking intelligent life in the universe are pointed away from Earth? signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release]
Samuel Thibault writes: > Mario Lang, on Sun 22 May 2016 21:56:00 +0200, wrote: >> What I am trying to say is, if a desktop wants to provide Accessibility >> that is actually useful to users, they will have to invest more time >> into it then they currently are willing to do. > > Well, perhaps it's not a question of time, but of methodology. I was mixing a few things up here, you are right. >> * Do some real usability testing with blind users. >>Unsupervised solo experiments do often lead to very vague and emotional >> results. > > Yes, I'd say that's why the lack of precise feedback for gnome: users > are simply lost in the new interface, and can't provide anything useful. Yes, I think this sums it up quite nicely. At least I am currently not able to submit any sort of meaningful bugreports, because I never know if what happened was expected behaviour or something that could/should be changed. > I'd say it's perhaps unfair to suggest that > gnome maintainers need to spend more time than they already do (I don't > know if we know how much they do), and that the issue is rather that > there is no face-to-face feedback? I don't want to be unfair to anyone. But on the other hand, I think we need a way of being able to express deficiencies. > Also, is there a guide for blind people new to gnome3, teaching how the > interface is working? If there is one, we need to point to it from > the debian accessibility wiki. I would be very much interested in that. GNOME2 had nice things like a keyboard shortcut manual. That already brought you 50% down the road. > If there is none, then that's possibly simply what Jean-Philippe and > Mario are lacking? Which is a symptom of what I was trying to say above: If a new interface needs special explanation for blind people to be useable, writing and promoting that explanation is part of making the system accessible. If that documentation does not exist, or is not well known, well, people perhaps need to spend more time on accessibility :-) And, I also question intuitivity: If such documentation is necessary, the system isn't really inherently "accessible" from a usability stand-point. Put in other words, why is such documentation even necessary. Perhaps it would be enough to have Orca (or some other GNOME component) announce some essential key bindings once the desktop pups up the first time. > One issue when introducing a completely different way to interact with > the desktop, as gnome3 did, is that it introduces new concepts. These > concepts are typically designed for sighted people first (I'm not > saying that gnome3 did it this way, I don't know, I only guess that's > probably how it happened), and are thus made to be intuitive for > sighted people. Maintainers then forget that they are probably not > intuitive for non-sighed people, and the new concepts thus *have* to > be explained to them. And this is exactly what parts of my original mail were trying to say. If you design a new system, and add accessibility as an afterthought, you inherit all sorts of problems, as you nicely put in the paragraph above. That is why I think the approach of adding accessibility as an afterthought during development of new concepts if a *fundamentally* flawed approach. It is how things have been done in the past, granted. But in my opinion, this has to change some day. We (as a global society) need to find ways to move towards making accessibility a first-class requirement. And I am not simply saying this because I am a potential user. I am saying this because I am convinced that technology should be used to enable people. Technology is our one true chance to conteract the negative effects of disabilities. > And I'd say you can not write a guide explaining the new concepts > without actually discussing face-to-face with a really blind user who > never *saw* the new interface, so that he pinpoints the things which > need to be explicited because they are not obvious when you can't see > (and that you can not un-understand once you have understood them, and > thus would forget to mention them). That "freshman" step is required, > I believe. I tend to agree, insofar as such a probject would definitely be helfpul. but... Sometimes, you can go a long way by thinking about how to use your system with a keyboard only. Because this is how blind people interact with a desktop. If you can write a guide which explains how to use GNOME3 without a mouse, I think you would go a *long* way towards an accessibility guide. Ideally, a good system should be self-explanatory insofar as a list of control commands should be enough to more or less explain how to use it. This is true for things like VoiceOver on iOS. I didn't need much more then a list of VoiceOver gestures to learn iOS. I never read a manual or any sort of documentation. The interface, combined with my knowledge of which keys/gestures I am supposed to use to control it, should be enough to explain how it
Re: MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release]
hi there, would it be usefull if the orca list was a part of this discussian? you may get more feed back :) I myself am using mate, because of it's lowerd memmery footprint, and I don't know how to navigate thrue menues. mate is far more responcive than gnome is. not much I know i've not used gnome for some time now, so alot could have changed. thanks, Majid Hussain On 22/05/2016, Christian Schoepplein wrote: > Hi, > > BTW., I'd like to give GNOME3 a try. But because I need my machine for > daily work it would be interesting if I can install the gnome packages > without making my MATE environment unuseable. Is this working? > > Ciao, > > Christian > > > > >
Re: MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release]
Hi, BTW., I'd like to give GNOME3 a try. But because I need my machine for daily work it would be interesting if I can install the gnome packages without making my MATE environment unuseable. Is this working? Ciao, Christian signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release]
(Note: everything I'm talking about is for upstream maintainers, not Debian maintainers, I'm just (ab)using the debian mailing list to get a somehow coherent view from actual users on the issue) Samuel
Re: MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release]
Mario Lang, on Sun 22 May 2016 21:56:00 +0200, wrote: > What I am trying to say is, if a desktop wants to provide Accessibility > that is actually useful to users, they will have to invest more time > into it then they currently are willing to do. Well, perhaps it's not a question of time, but of methodology. > * Do some real usability testing with blind users. >Unsupervised solo experiments do often lead to very vague and emotional > results. Yes, I'd say that's why the lack of precise feedback for gnome: users are simply lost in the new interface, and can't provide anything useful. I'm wondering: do gnome maintainers actually make real face-to-face testing with blind users? As Jean-Philippe Mengual said, there is a lot of work done on the technical side, perhaps it's just lacking actual testing with real users? I'd say it's perhaps unfair to suggest that gnome maintainers need to spend more time than they already do (I don't know if we know how much they do), and that the issue is rather that there is no face-to-face feedback? Also, is there a guide for blind people new to gnome3, teaching how the interface is working? If there is one, we need to point to it from the debian accessibility wiki. If there is none, then that's possibly simply what Jean-Philippe and Mario are lacking? One issue when introducing a completely different way to interact with the desktop, as gnome3 did, is that it introduces new concepts. These concepts are typically designed for sighted people first (I'm not saying that gnome3 did it this way, I don't know, I only guess that's probably how it happened), and are thus made to be intuitive for sighted people. Maintainers then forget that they are probably not intuitive for non-sighed people, and the new concepts thus *have* to be explained to them. And I'd say you can not write a guide explaining the new concepts without actually discussing face-to-face with a really blind user who never *saw* the new interface, so that he pinpoints the things which need to be explicited because they are not obvious when you can't see (and that you can not un-understand once you have understood them, and thus would forget to mention them). That "freshman" step is required, I believe. Samuel
Re: MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release]
Hi, On Sun, May 22, 2016 at 09:56:00PM +0200, Mario Lang wrote: >Samuel Thibault writes: > >> Cyril Brulebois, on Sat 21 May 2016 23:13:17 +0200, wrote: >>> * brltty: >>> - Install MATE desktop by default when brltty is used in d-i. >>> * espeakup: >>> - Install MATE desktop by default when espeakup is used in d-i. >> >> This change has triggered discussion on the debian-boot IRC channel. To >> summarize, gnome people are surprised that MATE would be preferred by >> blind people and wonder what they need to improve in gnome. I answered >> that it was more a problem of general trend towards visual ways of >> using the desktop, which can't be made really usable, but that's only a >> sketchy answer, they need more precise examples. >> >> Could blind people here comment on this: why you don't use gnome and >> prefer MATE instead? (or the converse of course, the idea is not to >> blame gnome, we just want to select by default what is best for users, >> according to their situation. I'm using MATE for my daily job because I started with GNOME 2.x in the past and therefor it is more familiar to me than GNOME3. Maybe I should give GNOME3 a chance and see how things work, but to be honest I've heard nothing good about accessibility and I know some blind people switching from GNOME3 to MATE because they find it better and easier to use. But I must also mension that I am no power user regarding to graphical desktops. I use MATE to work with Iceweasel, gajim, and mumble and sometimes pluma or writer and calc from the libreoffice package, without this tools I can't stay in contact with my colleagues, browse modern websites or quickly edit or read office documents, but the main work I still do inthe textbased terminal where I use mostly mutt for mailing and ofcourse ssh, vi and all the textbased linuxtools for the systemadministrative tasks I need to get done for my job. Cheers, Christian signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release]
Samuel Thibault writes: > Cyril Brulebois, on Sat 21 May 2016 23:13:17 +0200, wrote: >> * brltty: >> - Install MATE desktop by default when brltty is used in d-i. >> * espeakup: >> - Install MATE desktop by default when espeakup is used in d-i. > > This change has triggered discussion on the debian-boot IRC channel. To > summarize, gnome people are surprised that MATE would be preferred by > blind people and wonder what they need to improve in gnome. I answered > that it was more a problem of general trend towards visual ways of > using the desktop, which can't be made really usable, but that's only a > sketchy answer, they need more precise examples. > > Could blind people here comment on this: why you don't use gnome and > prefer MATE instead? (or the converse of course, the idea is not to > blame gnome, we just want to select by default what is best for users, > according to their situation. I have to submit that I am not really qualified to do a comparison, as I have not used MATE personally. However, I can try to describe the regressions since GNOME2 that still haven't been fixed from a perspective of a *user* not actually familiar with the visual appearance of the current desktop: GNOME3 compared to GNOME2 feels very unpredictable. This might be because the way how keyboard based control is now been done has been revised significantly. I still haven't really figured out how to use *any* GNOME desktop features from the keyboard except Alt+F2. I basically use GNOME as a launcher for firefox. Partly because I do most of my work still in a console, but also because the way how I am supposed to use GNOME3 for anything else then launching a command by hand is totally mysterious to me. I don't know how to use the menu, if there is one. I vaguely remember someone showed it to me, but it definitely didn't work like expected and was apparently so unintuitive that I forgot again how to do that. I don't see anything on my "desktop" as I used to do in GNOME2. I am somehow suspecting that is because GNOME3 has changed the whole approach of how a desktop is supposed to "look", however, as a blind person, I don't really know either way. As I have been told, MATE is mostly how GNOME2 worked. And from that perspective, I can totally understand that blind people who use a typical graphical desktop for more then just launching a single app would prefer MATE over GNOME3. GNOME2 was actually very accessible in its final versions. The app launch menu was easily accessible, and even desktop widgets like GNOME Weather worked perfectly. So if you were into that thing of customizing your desktop to your needs, you could actually do it, even in an exploratory mood, without having to refer to documentation that probably doesn't exist anyway. That said, I am a little bit upset that GNOME people, after all these years of working on GNOME3, are still surpised that blind people are not happy with it. I would have assumed that if devs did honest research on that topic, they would immediately know that there is still quite a lot of ground to cover. Accessibility doesn't get simpler, it does get increasingly complicated with every new and fancy technology introduced. And with new ideas like Clutter, or the web framework switch we seem to see every 3 or 4 years now, a lot of work is needed to get accessibility up to a level of real usability. Whenever you deliberately introduce new and fancy technology, and the early GNOME3 days very much felt like that, you create a horrible situation for Accessibility. If you don't take Accessibility into account from the absolute first move you do, you will have to patch it up after the fact, which usually leads to horrible systems. Sorry, that is just a fact, I have seen this happen over and over again. While this is not really related to MATE vs GNOME3, I'd like to raise the web framework switch as an example to show that Accessibility doesn't really "work" yet because it is not treated as a first-class citizen in the requirement space: I dont quite remember when it exactly was, but the internal web rendering engine of GNOME switched from Mozilla to WebKit one day. When the switch happened, WebKit accessibility was not ready yet. During that time, things like the GNOME Help were simply not accessible anymore. I think this case should be clear enough. If, due to some other technical needs, we decide to switch to something but don't make Accessibility a first-class requirement, we end up leaving the users that depend on it totally in the dark for a while. While I can sort of sympathize with those that need to juggle human resources, the end result of ending up with an inaccessible HELP system is just totally unacceptable. As long as upstream projects are willing to do such gross moves, we really can not claim that these systems are Accessible. They might be Accessible by accident, for a few days. But for all we know, they might also stop to do so tomorrow. What I
Re: MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release]
gnome uses too much memory especially on older hardware to the point of keyboard latency; newer systems with more memory don't have this problem and mate has a smaller memory footprint. I have sonar-mate running fine but run with difficulty using gnome on a 1GB ram machine. Also, all desktop instances would be more useable if those were tohave available a package like xdummy for installation when no screen is found connected to a computer. This way blind people could use linux without a display just as they can with windows 7 and above. Had that been the case, I could have migrated to a larger memory model machine and run it until I could get a dvi cable and connect the screen. On Sun, 22 May 2016, Samuel Thibault wrote: Date: Sun, 22 May 2016 06:13:55 From: Samuel Thibault To: debian-accessibility@lists.debian.org Cc: pkg-gnome-maintain...@lists.alioth.debian.org Subject: MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release] Resent-Date: Sun, 22 May 2016 10:14:26 + (UTC) Resent-From: debian-accessibility@lists.debian.org Hello, Cyril Brulebois, on Sat 21 May 2016 23:13:17 +0200, wrote: * brltty: - Install MATE desktop by default when brltty is used in d-i. * espeakup: - Install MATE desktop by default when espeakup is used in d-i. This change has triggered discussion on the debian-boot IRC channel. To summarize, gnome people are surprised that MATE would be preferred by blind people and wonder what they need to improve in gnome. I answered that it was more a problem of general trend towards visual ways of using the desktop, which can't be made really usable, but that's only a sketchy answer, they need more precise examples. Could blind people here comment on this: why you don't use gnome and prefer MATE instead? (or the converse of course, the idea is not to blame gnome, we just want to select by default what is best for users, according to their situation. Ideally we'd just say "pick whatever, they're all good"). Samuel --
Re: MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release]
Hi, (sorry, very long mail, but useful to argue and discuss on concrete matters) Thanks Samuel and Michael for your feedbacks. I defend the choice of MATE by default in Debian. I'll try to explain why, and I'm ready to read any reply, test things relying on such replies, and make my thought change here. Any other feedbacks from other disabled users is welcome to help us in such thought. 1st of all, I need to say Gnome does a useful effort in accessibility, thanks! Because even if it's not the default desktop for blind users, the Gnome work is absolutely great to have Orca, other assistive tech, and especially, GTK toolkit with a11y bindings, and GTK apps accessible, at least Gnome ones. For instance, even in MATE, I go on using Evince. But several problems remain. 1st, Evolution a11y has been broken for a long and never completely fixed. On Orca mailing list, you will see a lot of thread last week about problems by users to collect some info in mails, attached files, etc. As Evolution is the default mail client in Gnome, dependency of the suite, it would imply to install a parallel client like Icedove, and explain to blind users that they need to use it instead of Evolution. It's a confusion for users: I've a full suite, but need to add stuff and I cannot use default programs. Hmmm. Or "I've no problem, and I see 2 mail clients, why?" Complicated free software. But beyond this "isolated" problem, I think there's a more global design approach issue. To be understood here, I explain my point of beginning: I want free software to be used by any user, even those not interested in philosophy, technical, etc., as I consider that only a full free software ecosystem can have a useful impact on computing culture (with service, human as a resource instead of license, etc). So when I talk to "basic" user, I don't talk about philosophy, license, but ergonomy. "basic" blind user is a non-technical, not self-learning, not computer-interested person. But he/she needs computer given that it brings a lot of things for disable people. And I think accessibility means that anyone, not only blind technicians, should access to Debian, the Universal OS. Now you know the meaning of words I'll use. Noawaday, when I promote Debian for "basic" blind users, I explain that: - Windows isn't accessible out of the box (as you need to create a M$ account from an inaccessible box when you buy the computer). Its ergonomy is complex as well (Edge, need to install a screen reader, etc). - Mac is accessible, but complicated to learn even if tutorial is quite good. VoiceOver approach for Mac (not iOS) is complicated I think for a "basic" user, who don't want to learn using something during hours and hours. Just want to have mail, Web, office. - Debian is simple. Easy to describe MATE desktop, anything accessible with arrow keys or simple keyboard shortcuts, and its flexibility is absolutely fantastic: if you prefer menus, use menus; if you prefer everything on a single space, use desktop, if you prefer bindings, affect a binding to each app. Not pleased with an app or menu name? Change it (e.g. change LibreOffice Writer into word processing if you like). The only missing interaction is: typing keywords to run apps. Why is Gnome less accessible for a universal prospective? 1. For a "basic" blind user, the interface is very hard to figure out. I've used GNU/Linux for 10 years and computer for 20 years. I learnt GNU/Linux myself from doc. I still don't understand how the desktop is organized. I cannot figure out the apps installed on my system, how they are classified, and then, my system capabilities. Yes, I can search with keywords, but results imply I use good keywords. And the "basic" user has no idea wether he needs a web browser, a mail client, etc. The "basic" user will start, use arrow keys to search apps (and not alt-ctrl-tab), or a binding to run the menu, but not much more. Any other way will seem complicated for him (mouse not always usable, for blind people or other kinds of disability). So 1st point: I'm unable to teach someone how to run apps as efficiently as with MATE, as it's impossible to have accessible representation of it (the screen, the panels, etc). I'd need a strong learning effort, that users don't do. 2. "basic" blind users think that Mac, Windows, MATE are still complicated. Note that most blind people are more 60 old. Hence alternative system which close them in a specific world. Instead of this, I prefer installing Debian, universal OS, and customizing the desktop. While MATE is perfect for this without additional plugins, GNOME doesn't enable fine-tuning. Because in GNOME, you cannot rename objects, move/remove panels or change their form, etc. Because Gnome choosed to priorize responsiveness. But it's not what we search in a computer 1st when used by a blind old person. 3. For low-visual impaired people, Gnome developped a good magnification and colour approach. Aut it's often a theme approach. If you choose
Re: MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release]
Hello, Nick Gawronski, on Sun 22 May 2016 06:22:09 -0500, wrote: > I am also wondering if it has something to do with pulseaudio and the > issues with running both orca and espeakup at the same time? Nick > Gawronski Not, that technical issue is not really related with the question of gnome vs MATE. We are here talking about the behavior of the desktop itself (starting applications, switching between them, etc.) Samuel
Re: MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release]
Hi, I am for any desktop provided it has good accessibility support and that orca works equally as good with the applications I need to use mainly browsing the web and connecting and disconnecting to wireless networks. I am also wondering if it has something to do with pulseaudio and the issues with running both orca and espeakup at the same time? Nick Gawronski On 5/22/2016 5:13 AM, Samuel Thibault wrote: Hello, Cyril Brulebois, on Sat 21 May 2016 23:13:17 +0200, wrote: * brltty: - Install MATE desktop by default when brltty is used in d-i. * espeakup: - Install MATE desktop by default when espeakup is used in d-i. This change has triggered discussion on the debian-boot IRC channel. To summarize, gnome people are surprised that MATE would be preferred by blind people and wonder what they need to improve in gnome. I answered that it was more a problem of general trend towards visual ways of using the desktop, which can't be made really usable, but that's only a sketchy answer, they need more precise examples. Could blind people here comment on this: why you don't use gnome and prefer MATE instead? (or the converse of course, the idea is not to blame gnome, we just want to select by default what is best for users, according to their situation. Ideally we'd just say "pick whatever, they're all good"). Samuel
MATE chosen by default instead of gnome for blind people [Was: Debian Installer Stretch Alpha 6 release]
Hello, Cyril Brulebois, on Sat 21 May 2016 23:13:17 +0200, wrote: > * brltty: > - Install MATE desktop by default when brltty is used in d-i. > * espeakup: > - Install MATE desktop by default when espeakup is used in d-i. This change has triggered discussion on the debian-boot IRC channel. To summarize, gnome people are surprised that MATE would be preferred by blind people and wonder what they need to improve in gnome. I answered that it was more a problem of general trend towards visual ways of using the desktop, which can't be made really usable, but that's only a sketchy answer, they need more precise examples. Could blind people here comment on this: why you don't use gnome and prefer MATE instead? (or the converse of course, the idea is not to blame gnome, we just want to select by default what is best for users, according to their situation. Ideally we'd just say "pick whatever, they're all good"). Samuel
