hwbrowser

Jim Cornette redhat-jc at insight.rr.com
Sat Sep 20 23:57:34 UTC 2003


Janina Sajka wrote:
> A word of caution.
> 
> You run the risk of making the functions supported inaccessible to
> persons with disabilities. Because so much of the GUI in Linux is, and
> will be for some time, inaccessible, not having a text way to cope, can
> take the outstanding accessibility of the console, out.
> 
> Should anyone care? Besides the ethical reasons of our vaunted
> opensource inclusivity, there's the matter of commercial interest for
> anyone selling systems to the Feds, and other entities where
> accessibility is a selection criterion.
> 
> Just a thought in hope of enlarging the scope of criteria governing your
> decision matrix.
> 
> Bill Nottingham writes:
> 
>>From: Bill Nottingham <notting at redhat.com>
>>
>>John Mizell (jrmizell at earthlink.net) said: 
>>
>>>Is there a way we can have a text verson of this utility (hwbrowser)?
>>
>>It's not currently planned. There's 'less /etc/sysconfig/hwconf', 
>>but that's sort of ugly. :)
>>
>>Bill
>>

It would be better for all programs to be developed with a commandline 
interface and then a seperate GUI frontend developed to interface with 
the text based program. This would open up the ability to interface 
voice interfaces with the programs also.

Also, from personal experience. When all of the flashy graphical items 
are included. Less cncentration goes into the context and functionality 
that the program has. I found myself spiffing up all of the graphics and 
slacking on  adding actual context to the documents. I assume that GUI 
flashiness has the same effect on program developers.

Another possibility with keeping most of the programs basic, is that 
maybe somekind of universal graphical interface for most text based 
program usage, can be acheived.

I think that programs should strive to be usable by as many people as is 
possible, without neglecting those with limited senses. (As sight, 
hearing and such)

In short, I think that the resulting programs will be better designed 
and be more feature full.

Do you have any ideas as to what basic interface requirements would make 
hwbrowser or any other program more usable and easier to access?

Jim

--
Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to
be discarded:  that the whole point is to always see it as a soap bubble?





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