Blind and visually impared users are excluded from the project

Hello @linuxaccessibility,

thanks for reaching out! In the current state, postmarketOS is not ready for end-users, whether visually impaired or not. From the state of postmarketOS page:

If you are looking for an OS that is as usable as iOS or Android, this project is currently not for you. You will have the best experience with postmarketOS after taking time to familiarize yourself with how it works, making it your own and contributing to development and/or testing.

You wrote:

Accessibility functions that could be very useful for now is: screen reader (enable/disable by holding volume up and down in for 3 seconds, like on Androoid) maby a dark mode enabled by enabling screen reader and then volume up or down + power button for 3 seconds..

This feature would need to be implemented in the user interface you are using. As you have mentioned Phosh, consider following up in the Phosh issue tracker about this. You might also want to check out Sxmo, where recently a proof of concept with voice control was posted that could possibly be extended into a full accessibility mode: https://lists.sr.ht/~mil/sxmo-devel/%3C20221108215538.rhg6ja4m6nfv62s3%40trantor%3E

In general we (postmarketOS, and the wider Linux Mobile community from the people I've interacted with), are not trying to exclude users that need accessibility features. Quite the opposite, we would be proud to have these integrated well. It sounds like you have expertise in that area, so you could be a great contributor towards getting these implemented / providing feedback for them.

Personally I'm working on a new version of the on-device installer (ondev2). I did not find much time to push it forward in recent months, but making it more accessible is one of the goals over the current version. If you are interested, I could get back to you to test accessibility features when they are ready.

If you are interested in following development, the postmarketOS podcast could also be a good resource for visually impaired or blind people.

By Oliver Smith on 2023-10-25T20:24:51

Hello Oliver,

Sorry for my late response. I would appreciate and enjoy to test the accessibility related stuff, also if it's in the beginning just is the installer of PostMarkedetOS.

I understand theres some way yet to go, and sorry if i dont understand the state of the project, but i dont need a fully working phone yet, i can accept it not to work all around, but i just would like to be able to use the phone with a screen reader, so when the project gets to a state where end users can get in, the accessibility is already working and the focus on apps would be easier since there then would be a guide for how to develope apps for the OS.. Both IOS and Android has worked very hard on that, and both OS's did not focus on accessibility at the beginning and that gave them much more work when end users came by..

If the OS had accessibility, we would be able to make projects and fundraising for the developement of the OS, i am currently in multiple organisations for young people with blindness, which maby could help.

Im not the most familiar with all these tech systems, but if you and/or others could see this makes sence, you can reach me at ksb@dbsu.dk

Best kind regards Kenneth

Den 09.10.2023 kl. 08.08 skrev Oliver Smith (@ollieparanoid):

...

GitLab

Oliver Smith https://gitlab.com/ollieparanoid commented #2321 (comment 1594704620):

Hello @linuxaccessibility https://gitlab.com/linuxaccessibility,

thanks for reaching out! In the current state, postmarketOS is not ready for end-users, whether visually impaired or not. From the state of postmarketOS https://postmarketos.org/state/ page:
If you are looking for an OS that is as usable as iOS or Android,
this project is currently not for you. You will have the best
experience with postmarketOS after taking time to familiarize
yourself with how it works, making it your own and contributing to
development and/or testing.
You wrote:
Accessibility functions that could be very useful for now is:
screen reader (enable/disable by holding volume up and down in for
3 seconds, like on Androoid) maby a dark mode enabled by enabling
screen reader and then volume up or down + power button for 3
seconds..
This feature would need to be implemented in the user interface you are using. As you have mentioned Phosh, consider following up in the Phosh issue tracker about this. You might also want to check out Sxmo https://sxmo.org/, where recently a proof of concept with voice control was posted that could possibly be extended into a full accessibility mode: https://lists.sr.ht/~mil/sxmo-devel/%3C20221108215538.rhg6ja4m6nfv62s3%40trantor%3E

In general we (postmarketOS, and the wider Linux Mobile community from the people I've interacted with), are not trying to exclude users that need accessibility features. Quite the opposite, we would be proud to have these integrated well. It sounds like you have expertise in that area, so you could be a great contributor towards getting these implemented / providing feedback for them.

Personally I'm working on a new version of the on-device installer (ondev2 https://gitlab.com/postmarketOS/ondev2). I did not find much time to push it forward in recent months, but making it more accessible is one of the goals over the current version. If you are interested, I could get back to you to test accessibility features when they are ready.

If you are interested in following development, the postmarketOS podcast https://cast.postmarketos.org/ could also be a good resource for visually impaired or blind people.

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By Kenneth Schack Banner on 2023-10-25T20:24:51

(I'll reply here instead of mail, since this is a public issue and the response is sent via mail. If this doesn't work as well as directly writing to you via mail, let me know.)

you wrote:

I would appreciate and enjoy to test the accessibility related stuff, also if it's in the beginning just is the installer of PostMarkedetOS.

Thank you very much for offering this, I will come back to it once I have something to test. Development on the new installer has slowed down but I plan to return to it soon. FWIW I think the installer is also a key piece in this, as it could be one of the first thing the user interacts with when using postmarketOS, no matter which user interface they want to use. It could set up other accessibility features in the user interface one is installing as well. I wrote down some more thoughts of what a modern way to install postmarketOS could look like, and tried to keep accessibility in mind - happy to hear your thoughts on that: https://gitlab.com/postmarketOS/postmarketos.org/-/issues/156

you wrote:

i just would like to be able to use the phone with a screen reader, so when the project gets to a state where end users can get in, the accessibility is already working and the focus on apps would be easier since there then would be a guide for how to develope apps for the OS.. Both IOS and Android has worked very hard on that, and both OS's did not focus on accessibility at the beginning and that gave them much more work when end users came by..

In theory we should have a bit of an advantage over early days of iOS and Android: the toolkits that Linux Mobile community uses to create apps, GTK, QT, and the guidelines that already exists, are the same as for desktop linux distributions. On desktop accessibility has been (at least somewhat) integrated, e.g. here a page from the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines: https://developer.gnome.org/hig/guidelines/accessibility.html

So I would hope that once the user interfaces (Phosh, Plasma Mobile, Gnome Mobile, Sxmo), or at least one of them, have such a screen reader feature integrated. Then it would be possible to actually use most of the apps or being able to fix the apps where they do not work as expected by adding the missing labels to buttons etc.

I guess the best way to move this forward is creating issues in the trackers of these projects and pointing out that this is a desired feature. I need to go now, but I plan to do this over the next days and point them here.

By Oliver Smith on 2023-10-26T08:01:39

@linuxaccessibility: would an IRC / matrix channel be a good way to communicate more about this? we could set up an extra channel for accessibility in linux mobile

By Oliver Smith on 2023-10-26T08:11:31

I guess the best way to move this forward is creating issues in the trackers of these projects and pointing out that this is a desired feature. I need to go now, but I plan to do this over the next days and point them here.

Found existing issues in Sxmo and Phosh trackers:

Added them here: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Accessibility#Related_issues

I'm still wondering what the best way to coordinate and move it forward here, but I'm glad to see that others have also thought about this.

@linuxaccessibility: in case you want to get more involved in pushing this forward / giving feedback to ideas / possibly testing stuff, what would be your preferred way of communication for this?

If a matrix chat is fine, please join: #fossmo-accessibility:matrix.org

By Oliver Smith on 2023-11-01T21:55:03

mentioned in issue ondev2#13

By Oliver Smith on 2023-10-09T06:12:34

I think this should be a priority.

Because I use gammastep to make the system reddish and a lower brightness (close to 0) on TV and Mobile devices, I do have issues with some software.

For instance Gajim (XMPP chat client) has a Green indicator for online and Grey indicator for offline and both look the same under my setup.

Blue, Orange and Red are distinguishable.

Kenneth, thank you for this report.

By GreenLunar on 2023-10-09T07:17:40

I think largely this stems from a lack of contributors who have experience with this, in addition to the general never-ending to-do list of things to fix in Linux phones. I would love it for Linux phones to have first-class support for blind and visually impaired users, but realistically it's a long road ahead given how neglected such support is on the Linux desktop as a whole. But, like Oliver said, do make issue specific issue reports about things that could be improved, not just in the Phosh issue tracker. I don't know how easy this is for you, but I think there is a lack of knowledge (let alone manpower …) regarding what needs to be done to improve accessibility for visually impaired users in desktop Linux as a whole.

By Newbyte on 2023-10-16T12:50:37

I think that SXMO is a good UI to begin with.

SXMO appears to be the best multipurpose UI for any device, and including for the visually impaired.

Anyone who wants to contribute can start with SXMO on an E-Ink or in conjunction with gammastep.

I think that a joint website and forum would be a good idea.

Similarly to https://omemo.top/ but for visually impaired.

By GreenLunar on 2023-10-17T23:06:36

added discussion type::support labels

Related: #777

By clayton craft on 2023-10-11T05:05:54

added a11y label

added help wanted label

There are a myriad of smaller ways to help too. We could target accessibility within our infrastructure as well: for example, I'm seeing a lot of images in the wiki with poor descriptions. If I was using a screen reader, I wouldn't know what the image describes. It's possible our Wiki theme (and possible mobile Wiki theme) aren't as accessible as they could be. So while full OS accessibility is one facet, this entire project aims to be accessible to everyone, and could use folks to help there as well.

By Bryant Mairs on 2023-10-26T16:10:51

this is a very interesting topic! i am on sxmo/pmos currently hacking a speech-to-text and text-to-speech offline option together (very raw) i use it for translation language while traveling. never thought of people without sight. while it is 'kind of easy' to change behaviors of button inputs, i really need to overthink your suggestions and how to solve it so it would blend into the existing environments. no promises at all, but for sure you inspired me to think differently from now on...

note: i think gnome just released orca screenreader recently

By magdesign on 2024-04-24T08:36:45

Orca has been around for long, but last time I tested it in pmOS Phosh I couldn't get it to work at all.

By Newbyte on 2024-04-24T08:36:45

Blind and visually impared users are excluded from the project

On what environment did you encounter the issue?

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How did you get postmarketOS image?

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