 Hello, welcome at our presentation about accessibility of computers for visually impaired users with a special focus on using maps. Let us introduce ourselves. My name is Milan Zamazal, I work as a senior software engineer at Thread Hat and my site is All Right. Hello everyone, my name is Sukash Director. I'm just finishing my master's degree at Maslake University and I'm also doing an internship at Thread Hat. What about my site? Well, I can't see nothing. Lukasz, how is it using computers while seeing nothing? The first problem is probably using a keyboard. Honestly, it's not the biggest problem but yeah, it's a problem in the beginning because you have to basically learn the layout by your mind but it's not so much special because even a sighted people can do this but when you have to do something on your computer and you can't do it using the keyboard, yeah that's a problem I would say. And how about using a computer without a screen? Well, it's a little more interesting because there's so many interesting things on the screen so we have to use some special software called a screen reader which basically tells you what this rectangle with this text is, is this a button or something different. And there are so many cases where the information for the screen reader aren't complete or are even misleading so if you can, you publish, could try to make our life easier. And I think there are also kinds of applications that make little sense to be used by blind users such as a photo editor, right? Yeah, that's true but even if the application use case makes sense, for example, some audio editing software you have to think a little bit harder how to make all the interfaces accessible but yeah, it can be done so if you are developing something just try how best you can or ask someone from the visual infinite group because it can be done and it helps every time. Well, and a little spoiler, browsing maps can be tricky too. Yeah, that's true. So what kind of hardware do you basically need to use a computer? Well, in the first place, I need a keyboard but then I need some speakers or headphones as well. And if everything is interesting and nice, I can have a Bell display which is basically a device which can show you part of the text in Braille, which can be useful, for example, when doing some math exams or spell checking or programming and things like that. Sounds interesting. Can you show us how to use a computer with speech output? Sure, of course. So in the first place, we usually turn the computer on. And after power comes, you have all the boot screens and things like that, which are interesting for geeks and so on, but aren't accessible. But it's not some kind of deal breaker because you don't need to access this open. But if, for example, you have a corporate policy for this encryption, it may be a little bit tricky because you have to basically guess the correct time for the password because even there, you don't have even some kind of beep or something like that. So you just basically guess and when the time is right. And I hope it's now you type the password and then you basically wait and hope you did everything correctly. So now we are waiting for a screen integer to come up to finally get some speech. Yeah, that's right. The standard GNU Linux screen integer is called orca and it's a piece of software that displays contents of applications using speech output or a bright display device. Speech output is usually easier and faster to use, but less accurate. If you need accuracy or perhaps silence, then a bright display can come handy. Also, bright displays are limited to those eight dots per character or per place, while speech is more flexible with different voices, volume levels, speech levels, and so on. Yeah, and it seems we are nearing the right time. Enter password for them comes 2021 user password text. Yes, finally, we got something. It's the login screen. And it's nice to have a speech here because we can use all the controls on this screen. But if you want to try this at home, you have to turn the screen reader on on the screen as well. But we can finally write a password as everyone else. Black circle, black, black, black, black circle, black circle, black, black circle. And we can log in screen reader on. And thank you. And if you want to play with this at home, you have to turn the screen reader on as well a second time because notification settings are for each user. Depending on the distribution, this may be available on the toolbar or in general settings. Yeah, notification. So now we can do a lot of things. Of course, we can use keys to browse the desktop icons, which sounds like this computer icon, Tyroloom phone icon, trash icon. And so on, but we can of course do more interesting things. We can, for example, go to the web, which we will do right now, through the applications menu and the Internet submenu applications menu, accessories menu, graphics menu, internet menu, file zealot, Firefox, desktop, trash icon, applications menu, menu, restore session m bashmas it restore I won't. And then we land on it. Please wait. Fidora logo image link. Finish loading Fidora project. Start page page has one landmark 11 headings, 26 unvisited links. Fidora logo image and we get a short summary of the page like this. Here you can do a lot of things. For example, if you have no idea what's on the page, you can use your row keys, which sounds like this. The latest news from Fidora magazine, heading level four. And 15 image installing next cloud 20 on Fidora Linux with hotman heading level three link. Of course, why not? But we aren't going to do this for this time, maybe in the future. 24 containers may open source productivity platform dot dot dot and so on. But if you know the page and you need, for example, some link, you aren't going to use the row keys, you would probably use something like a list of links, which sounds like this. Okay, links, 26 items found dialogue table with 26 rows, three columns. Fidora logo, unvisited, HTTPS colon slash slash start dot Fidora project dot org slash and slash. Pretty nice feature of this table is that you can see to address of the link, which is quite interesting for geek users, but and you don't have these on Windows or other operating systems, but I have answered community project project. You can just basically browse the table and then you can activate one of these links as you wish. Of course, you can get list of more things like auto headings, lists, tables, and so on and so on. But it's, it's basically the same and not probably much interesting. So the normal products, let's move on. Some user, how about browsing maps on the web? Is it also possible? Yeah, I was just getting to it. Naturally, we can go to see web.org search with go P, P, N, N, unscathed, treat map dot org slash unscathed, search with Google or enter address, editable combo box HTTPS colon slash slash w w w dot open street map dot org search entry focus mode. And we get the search fields where we can, for example, that could vary because I know we are no PRNO. And even the speech isn't very useful. We get some results link browse mode open street map nominated link heading level four PRNO occurs PRNO mess. So if the morons kick badge Southeast check your visited link. You get these weird burn station that you are using an English voice and check names but it's it's just fun and you can't do much with this. And if you open this thing, leaving form relation PRNO 438,171 open street map documents web. You get the page and directions between leaving form 400 visit link. But we should only impact each person can't of course see the map. So it's kind of sad and you basically can't do much here. This doesn't look very useful indeed. But open street map is not only pictures unlike proprietary maps. It's also data. Can we use that? Fortunately, we actually can. Well, everything started one day when I was just walking a street and wondering what else is here. I know a few things. But there's probably more. So I created an application called hero streets, which basically allows a visual impact to walk around the streets and see what's around do some searches and so on and so on. And I would say it's quite useful. And wearing such applications already available. What does make feel the streets unique? Well, for mobile operating systems, there are many applications of this form. So there's probably not much you can do as a sole developer, which would be so innovative. But for desktop operating systems, most of the attempts for their abandoned look long time ago, and to add to it, they birth growth platforms. So there's something which can be improved. Mainly you can, for example, make application growth platforms. So it runs on Windows and Linux. Definitely, it was tested there. Of course, you have to make the application accessible because then to develop point would be quite hard. And because the application uses open sleep map data, whenever the data are improved, the application improves as well. Sounds interesting. Can you show us how is it? Fill the streets? Of course. Desktop trash icon, feel the streets desktop configuration file. So first, we have to launch the thing. Select an area dialog available areas and weapon updated last updated web 17th and 2021 to 35 50 m CT file size one hundred ninety eight not six for my be created sun zero six act two thousand ninety eleven for the three fifty three p.m. test list with 31 items and we get the list looks like this. And now we will select an area one of these lands. We are no we are no test of a site. You are entering crossing you are crossing road. And because we have even bookmarks for some interesting place, we will go to one of these entry dialogue space before the crop. Select a new are leaving crossing road. Continue to test them as somewhere on road. Go to Sova in Brno near crossing. And if we do a single step, you are crossing road residential. You could turn to the right and continue for 41 meters. You are crossing road. Residential. You could turn to the left and continue for two hundred and seventy meters or you can continue along the current road for another one thousand seven hundred meters on the front right in the shop. On the front left in the shop. Maybe you heard the sound that it was quite quiet, but you can definitely hear the crossing sounds. So yeah, we are on a crossing and we can basically see the streets, but even there we can see a slight mistake into data because the right street should have a name, but it doesn't have one. So the application has to fall back on this more complicated description of the crossing, which would be more nicer if the names were correct. But yeah, somehow I hope fix this one soon enough. So we can walk further and show some more things. So let's go. You cross road residential. You cross road. Closet over residential. Now you're on road. Cunic over tertiary on the front left in the grass. Interesting object found after thirty seven meters. Yeah, we found a nearby grass. So yeah, it's interesting, but there are probably more interesting things before us. So we will go further. On the front left is a shop optic centrum and Hachekansky. Interesting object found after eight meters. Yeah, another of these drives of an English voice to spell a check name. So yeah, it's a shop. But there's more interesting things. So on the front right is a shop textbook. Interesting object found after 20 meters. Yeah, we weren't 20 meters and reached a nearby shop, which is it's a shop, but let's go on. On the front right is a waste basket. Interesting object found after five meters. Yeah, it's interesting to see these baskets in the data because sometimes it's useful to know where they are. But let's go on and some more. On the front right is a village green. Interesting object found after 12 meters. Another kind of grass. I have no idea why there are two types of objects, but here they are, but let's go on. On the front right is a residential. Interesting object found after five meters. And there are some kind of land, but let's go on as well. On the front right is a waste basket. Interesting object found after one meter. Yeah, another basket, but it's not the thing we are looking for, so we go slightly more. You are entering crossing. You are crossing road footway. You could turn to the left and continue for seven meters. Or you can continue along the current road for another 1609 meters. Interesting object found after four meters. Yeah, so we basically found another crossing, but this time we are only informed that there's a footway, which is, it's interesting to know, but we have no idea where we would end up with if we took the crossing. There's not much we can do with because there's no association of those footways to the roads. So it would be nice to have them, but we don't, so we can at least look nearby what's around because there's definitely something which gives us something like this. Nearby objects, 130 objects shown. Objects. Road to the covert tertiary. Distance zero meters, 203 degree relatively. List with 130 items. We get the road. Road footway, distance zero meters, 203 degree relatively. Crossing, distance zero meters, 203 degree relatively. Crossing, distance. Railway, distance one meters, 70 degree relatively. Yeah, that's interesting because from this data we know that quite nearby is the railway and if we want to know more we can even look. Object properties tree. Specific properties expand type, tram. Yeah, we can see that tram railway which is nice and everything and of course from this we probably could look for the parent and even found out what line this thing is, but it's not something we will do now because we have some time, but I think the voice was enough and well, let's probably talk a little bit more. Very nice demo, thank you. Action. That's nothing. You have already mentioned some problems with data. Is it the only thing to work on or do you have some other future plans with field of streets? Well, I would like to find out how other people are using the applications, what are they missing or things like this. So I'm planning to make a study between all the visual impact people I can find and then I would like to speak about this application even abroad because there are so many visual impact people in our country, but worldwide there are more of them. And of course, adding features, for example some editing or something like this is even possible too, but I've done some actual time plans. We will see. And multilingual speech output can be also a challenge with such an application? It would be so cool to have this thing. So good luck with all that. Thank you. Let's conclude this session with a few thoughts on accessibility generally. In my opinion, accessibility is not optional in high quality software. The better the software, the better its accessibility and the better its usage for all the users, not just those visually impact ones, it's related. There are three basic things, not breaking things, keep things working well and improving things. If a new software version breaks functionality that used to work previously, all the users will be unhappy. It means there is some problem with the software development and some things should be changed about that to make all the users satisfied. So in such a case, the software development process and testing should be improved and regressions should be avoided. If something already works, it's good to follow the right practices. For example, if you add a new code to an application and forget about keyboard navigation, then not only visually impaired users will be unhappy about that. The same with the data. Perhaps there are some open-street map contributors among you. If you edit open-street map data, please try to avoid those little mistakes that can break not only field of streets, but also other applications such as navigation or other software. And of course, there is always a big space for improvements. If you'd like to help with accessibility, you can look at accessibility-related bugs in your favorite distribution and try to fix them. You can work on installers, desktop environments, applications. You can fix missing keyboard navigation, missing labels, and other accessibility defects. It's also good to help with documentation. There is surprisingly little amount of documentation how to write well-accessible desktop applications for GNU Linux. And of course, every newcomer can bring some new fresh idea that can make change and further improvements for accessibility or anything else. And again, don't forget, for example, if you improve audio output in your distribution, then all the users will be grateful for such a change, not only those who are blind or visually impaired. Here you have a couple of slides with links providing more information about different topics on accessibility, various areas. You can look at them later and find more information about those things at the referred sites. And one final remark. Accessibility is actually not that difficult. Well, browsing maps is a special topic, but in most areas we know what to do and how to do it. The major and the worst problem is to actually do it. If software developers or web designers don't care and make the web or software inaccessible for handicapped users generally, not those visually impaired ones only, then they exclude them from using the web and from using the software, which in contemporary society often means that they are excluded from the society completely. And let's not wait until law enforces everything that won't happen and perhaps shouldn't happen. Let's try to be welcoming to handicapped users and make software well accessible and this way make the lives of handicapped users easier. And that's all from us. Attention. And do you have any questions? Thank you for your presentation. There are some questions for you. So there's a question from Ben. Are there ways to do CI testing of applications to automatically check accessibility for visually impaired users or does that need to be manually tested? Honestly, I don't know. There are APIs, accessibility APIs that allow screen reader to work and do their job of presenting the contents of applications and those APIs can be used also for testing desktop generally, not just accessibility, but that the application has the right buttons and so on and interacts properly. And this is also used at Red Hat for CI testing desktops but whether even applications such as Firefox, LibreOffice and so on use accessibility testing in their CI pipelines, I don't know. It's true that there are sometimes regressions with those applications. So I suspect if there is that testing, it's not completely sufficient and those regressions are not always avoided. But I don't know what actually is there. Sorry. Thank you. And the second question is by Jakub. Is there any tooling to find accessibility issues within OpenStreetMap, for example? It feels like that's an important thing that can be fixed quite easily if pointed out. Yeah, that's a good question. I'm not aware about any accessibility, special purpose accessibility testing tools because there are probably not so many applications like FieldStreets or something similar. But generally, for instance, Jozm, the tool commonly used in OpenStreetMap, has some validations. And I think it should award about those cases when, for instance, like we have seen that a part of the street is nameless, the name tag is not there. Or when some points are close one to the other, but not joined, which makes often problems with navigation and would also confuse FieldStreets because then crossing is not crossing anymore. And so if you pay attention to those warnings by Jozm, then I think the data will be definitely better and better accessible as well. Thank you. And another question by Vladimir. Does the ongoing move to Wayland create visible problems for accessibility? He asks, as a developer of a GUI application, that has this problem, the Anaconda installer, and he wonders if this is a pattern. There are definitely problems with Wayland. It's a new thing. And accessibility has problems, for instance, with the new security features. Lukas, can you probably elaborate on that? Yeah, of course, the most basic things works. So if that you can use some applications even on Wayland, but there are some issues, for example, with more advanced features, for example, if you need to emulate some mouse movements and you can't do it because the security model is quite different and the coordinate systems as well. Of course, you can work around it on some level, but there it's a problem. And there are probably some more. Honestly, it's quite hard sometimes to find out whether the Wayland is the cause, because you are in this case, you're probably changing a lot more things, maybe the UI backends and so on. So you can probably see bugs elsewhere as well. So yeah, there may be problems, but it's not every time obvious where the bug really is. And so it's a more general problem with finding the root case of the bugs. Sometimes there are so many layers where the thing can hide.