One of the most important aspects of any Linux distribution is the accessibility for physically disabled people, and some are doing it better than others. Ubuntu is not working to improve this aspect of the OS by adopting some solutions from the community.
It’s easy to think that an operating system is easy to use, but we often forget that the same OS needs to work for people who can’t have the same experience as the rest of us. A physically disabled person will have a tough time doing some of the tasks that other people consider ordinary, like moving and clicking the mouse.
Ubuntu is one of the most used operating systems out there, and it stands to reason that it’s also being used by all kinds of people. This is why Canonical needs to have a much better accessibility support, and they are now working towards this end.
New accessibility feature coming to future versions of Ubuntu
The leader of the desktop flavor of Ubuntu, Will Cooke is working to make sure that Ubuntu is doing much better in this regard. As it stands right now, Ubuntu is making use of Orca, the accessibility component from the GNOME stack. It’s a good application, and it gets better all the time, but it still lacks some features.
“I’ve swapped a couple of emails with +Owen K over the last few weeks about improving mouse accessibility in Ubuntu. Owen needs to use a feature like Click Lock on Windows where you click a mouse button once, and it stays locked down while you move the mouse, or joystick, or pointing device of your choice, and then you click again to unlock. This allows you to drag items around without having to keep the button held down all the time,” wrote Will on his Google+ account.
There is still a lot of work left to be done, but it’s nice to see that people are working to improve the accessibility feature in Ubuntu and that it’s not always about a new scrollbar or some shiny new features.
Will Cooke also had this to say: “If anyone has expertise in this area please get in touch with me will.cooke@canonical.com We’ve got a few ideas to try from the G+ post, but if you want to help please drop me a line.”
Via Softpedia