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Re: Accessibility: Should we complain about it, or fix it?

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From: deborah.kaplan@suberic.net
Date: Nov 10, 2014 11:12AM

I additionally feel very strongly that we need to make people
know that "fixing it" (whether that means submitting patches,
filing well-written bugs, testing, or something else) is welcome
and easy.

E.g.

1. Here is the bug tracker for JAWS / NaturallySpeaking /
VoiceOver. Here are instructions on how to write a good bug.

2. Here is the bug tracker for NVDA / Firefox / Gnome. Here are
instructions on how to write a good bug. Here are that
community's policies on whether or not they welcome patches from
outsiders. If you would like to submit a patch, here are the
documents you should read/IRC channels you should frequent/people
to whom you should reach out.

3. Here are the WAI webpages with the standards under
construction. Here's how you understand them, and here's how to
contribute. Here are the people to whom you should reach out if
you would like to be part of a standards conversation.

It's difficult enough to figure out how to "fix it" (and what
that even entails) for one product. The process for trying to
decipher what's going on for a multitude of products is very,
very intimidating for a lot of people. Additionally, many open
source communities are scary to newbies -- no, flat-out
terrifying. Using IRC if you are not used to it; reaching out in
an open source community were the first few responses you
might receive may very well be hostile or belittling; figuring
out how to file a bug against NaturallySpeaking without paying
money to Nuance: these are all difficult tasks, and we forget how
difficult they are because the people in this group happen to
know how to do most of them.

I think it would be really valuable for a group of people to
create a portal for "So, you found a bug in accessibility! How do
you help make sure it is fixed?" that helps people out with this
process. Ironically, given the spirit of this conversation, I am
not actually volunteering to do that.

Deborah Kaplan