Enhancing accessibility for FOSS Desktops

This project is funded by the Department of Information Technology, Ministry of IT, under the NRCFOSS-Phase II project. The project aims to

• Study the field of accessibility with respect to the needs and the relevant technologies; and identify the needs in terms of FOSS development,
• Develop software solutions suitable for Indian environments based on FOSS for specific types of disabilities,
• Formulate guidelines for software applications to support accessibility, and
• Plan and organise training programs in this area.

Some of the broad deliverables of this project include:

• Predictive writing tool integrated with the desktop
• Screen Reader based full desktop including office, browser, etc.
• Development of speech-based input mechanisms
• Enhancing the desktop to cater to people with cognitive disabilities

All the tools developed in this project will be released open source and will be integrated with Linux desktops, as applicable.

Activities under the project:

• For Visually-Impaired
• For Physically-Impaired
• For Cognitively-Impaired
• GNU/Linux distribution for differently-abled people

Awareness Program

Publications

Staff Associated

For Visually-impaired

1) Enhancements to screen reader Orca: CDAC team has contributed following features to Orca screen reader of GNOME desktop:

• List Shortcuts: This helps a new Orca user who finds it difficult to remember the numerous keyboard shortcuts. At the press of a key combination, Orca is ready to speak the list of available shortcuts. The user can navigate the list with Up/ Down arrows. This has become a standard feature for GNOME 2.32 and later. More information can be found at https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=616820

• Skim Reading: While reading a large document, a user may want a quick preview of the contents. Or, he may want to go directly to a specific paragraph. In Skim Read, Orca skims through the entire document, reading only the first line/sentence of each paragraph. The user can halt at the desired paragraph by pressing the “Ctrl” key. The feature has been tested by members of Orca community and may become part of a future release. More information can be found at https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=577481

• Structural Navigation for OpenOffice.org: Structural navigation enables a user to navigate through elements of a specific category like tables, headings etc. by pressing only a key or two. For example, a user can move to the next heading by pressing H and to the previous heading by pressing Shift+H. In Orca this feature is available for HTML documents, but not for word documents. CDAC team studied accessibility of OpenOffice.org and identified bugs which are blocking implementation of structural navigation. CDAC team have also submitted patches to add structural navigation to word documents. More information can be found at – https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=652105

2) Making PDF documents accessible: CDAC Mumbai made PDF documents more accessible and usable for blind users through Orca. This method of accessing PDF has been listed on ORKA Wiki. More information can be found at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/Acroread#Use_pdftohtml

3) Easy traversal of desktop icons: Desktop is the very first screen after logging into the system. A visually impaired user may need to know what is available on the desktop by traversing it once. In absence of visual feedback, it is very confusing for visually impaired to exactly know the state of desktop. This feature helps user traverse the desktop icons completely by using a single arrow key (Down arrow key). More information can be found at – https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=613111

For Physically-impaired

1) Anumaan: It is an open source predictive text entry system to aid people with motor disabilities. More details about Anumaan can be accessed at – http://www.cdacmumbai.in/anumaan .

2) GEM: GEM (GEstures with Mouse) is a mouse gesture-based input mechanism which uses gestures as input to the system. Gestures can be drawn using a mouse or some equivalent device like touch pad, joystick, pen tablet etc.

This Input mechanism is intended for people suffering with different kinds of motor disabilities, who may face problems in using mouse and keyboard in conventional way. Hence, it provides them with an alternate and effective mechanism for using the system to perform various tasks such as navigation, executing commands & keyboard shortcuts, and launching applications etc. on Linux desktop.

Screenshots

• Downloads:
  
  • GEM-beta-0.1 tar.gz can be downloaded from here .
  • GEM-beta-0.1 .deb can be downloaded from here .
  • User manual for GEM can be downloaded from here .

3) Hand Gesture-based Input Mechanism: A prototype for hand gesture recognition have been developed. On the basis of prototype, the development of hand gesture-based input mechanism (HGIM) is in progress. This mechanism intends to provide input mechanism via a set of predefined hand gestures for Linux desktop.

For Cognitively-impaired

A Desktop environment is being created catering to these users. Fetures include:

• Tagged file system with visual tags for easy recall.
• Reminder facility
• User Activity Log to reduce memory load in recalling filenames and work done before.

GNU/Linux distributions for differently-abled people

There are three distributions specific to three different kinds of disabilities namely:

1. GNU/Linux distribution for Visually-challenged: This is a GNU/Linux distribution (beta version - 0.1.1) created specially for visually challenged users. Visually challenged users can use it out of the box because accessibility settings required by them are already enabled. ISO file of distribution and other related documentation can be downloaded from links given below. It is advisable to go through documentation first before installing/using the distribution.

Downloads:

GNU/Linux distribution ISO for Visually challenged can be downloaded from here .

Documentation:

• Read Me
• Release Notes
• Installation Guide in odt format ( Click here ) and pdf format ( Click here )
• Frequently Asked Questions

2. GNU/Linux distribution for Physically-challenged: 'GNU/Linux for Physically Challenged-Beta-0.1.1' is a special distribution for physically challenged people, so that they can easily access FOSS desktops. ISO file of distribution and other related documentation can be downloaded from links given below. It is advisable to go through documentation first before installing/using the distribution.

Downloads:

GNU/Linux distribution ISO for Physically challenged can be downloaded from here .

Documentation:

• Read Me
• Release Notes
• Installation Guide
• Frequently Asked Questions

3. GNU/Linux distribution for Cognitively-challenged: This GNU/Linux distribution has been developed to provide an accessible desktop environment to the cognitively challenged users. ISO file of distribution and other related documentation can be downloaded from links given below. It is advisable to go through documentation first before installing/using the distribution.

Downloads:

GNU/Linux distribution ISO for Cognitively-challenged can be downloaded from here .

Documentation:

• Read Me
• Release Notes
• Installation Guide
• User Manual
• Frequently Asked Questions

Note: In case of error in any download you can ask for your distribution by sending mail to ossd[at]cdac[dot]in

Awareness Programs

• National Workshop on FOSS Desktop Accessibility: A national workshop on FOSS Desktop Accessibility was organized on August 26, 2011. Details about the workshop can be accessed at here - http://www.cdacmumbai.in/index.php/news_and_events/national_workshop_on_foss_desktop_accessibility

Publications:

• Leena C, Bhat D, Aparna R, Sasikumar M, “Enhancing Orca For Document Navigation For Visually Impaired”, page255-262, Proceedings of AEGIS Conference 28-30 Nov, 2011, Brussels, Belgium.

Feedback can be sent at ossd[at]cdac[dot]in.

Staff Associated:

• Sasikumar M
• Sagun B
• Leena C
• Dattatray B
• Sambaiah R
• Shivnath K