Embracing Accessibility in Open source
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FOSS Backstage 202222 / 39
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Open sourceSoftwareSoftware developerChaos (cosmogony)Software testingAdaptive behaviorKey (cryptography)Type theorySystem callOpen sourceTouchscreenMassSoftwareGoodness of fitInstance (computer science)WebsiteWeb 2.0Sheaf (mathematics)Graph coloringDesign by contractProduct (business)Phase transitionProjective planeType theoryAdaptive behaviorInclusion mapSelf-organizationForm (programming)Software developerDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Video gameRow (database)Right angleSingle-precision floating-point formatCodePattern recognitionGenderUniform resource locatorMultiplication signAreaNumberComputer-assisted translationBitMereologyGroup actionCognitionKeyboard shortcutBuildingBand matrixComputer programmingStandard deviationOpen setCausalityMeeting/InterviewComputer animationEngineering drawing
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DiagramOpen sourceLibrary (computing)SoftwareDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Stress (mechanics)BuildingVapor barrierInstance (computer science)Type theoryMachine vision
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Type theoryMachine visionCognitionFocus (optics)Core dumpOpen sourceProduct (business)Process (computing)SoftwareAdaptive behaviorInclusion mapPattern recognitionOpen sourceCodeNumberStandard deviationFunctional (mathematics)CASE <Informatik>ArmWebsiteLevel (video gaming)Insertion lossView (database)Content (media)Adaptive behaviorMereologyType theorySoftwareGraph coloringTerm (mathematics)WordBitMachine visionRight angleCausalityForm (programming)Keyboard shortcutDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Core dumpInstance (computer science)PermanentSelf-organizationGoogolZoom lensSoftware developerComputer animation
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Inclusion mapOpen sourceCodeSoftwareMereologyAdaptive behaviorNormal (geometry)WebsiteDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Machine visionInclusion mapGraph coloringSpectrum (functional analysis)Formal languageOrientation (vector space)Open setDialectProjective planeDirection (geometry)Goodness of fitContrast (vision)InformationMaterialization (paranormal)Product (business)Right angleInstance (computer science)Software developerComputer animation
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Open setOpen sourceContext awarenessInclusion mapOpen sourceProjective planeSoftwareTwitterPattern recognitionSelf-organizationProduct (business)FeedbackInclusion mapKey (cryptography)Traffic reportingCASE <Informatik>Chaos (cosmogony)Metric systemOrder (biology)Event horizonWebsiteAnalytic setSoftware developerNumberArithmetic progressionPhase transitionMereologyOpen setSpectrum (functional analysis)Dependent and independent variablesComputer animation
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Context awarenessInclusion mapWorld Wide Web ConsortiumCAN busMeasurementAuthoring systemContent (media)Standard deviationStandard deviationWeb 2.0Noise (electronics)HypermediaForm (programming)Open sourceContent (media)Process (computing)WebsiteKeyboard shortcutNavigationAuthorizationWeb browserOnline helpPattern recognitionSpeech synthesisRevision controlProjective planeFlow separationStress (mechanics)Context awarenessCodePhase transitionPhysical systemWordPermanentType theoryProduct (business)Process (computing)Translation (relic)Authoring systemStatistical dispersionSoftwareAddress spaceSoftware testingInstance (computer science)Computer animation
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Content (media)Standard deviationPerspective (visual)WebsiteDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Projective planeContent (media)Physical systemSingle-precision floating-point formatSoftwareAreaGoogolWebsitePattern recognitionSpectrum (functional analysis)InformationFlow separationOpen sourceSoftware developerOperator (mathematics)Solid geometryRight angleTask (computing)Computer animation
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Open sourceSoftwareCAN busOperations support systemNormed vector spaceSoftware testingImplementationSpectrum (functional analysis)Open sourceSoftwareNumberInstance (computer science)Different (Kate Ryan album)PlanningPhase transitionInclusion mapWebsiteUniform resource locatorMassSoftware developerGenderExclusive orSoftware engineeringForm (programming)BuildingLevel (video gaming)Fundamental theorem of algebraProduct (business)Range (statistics)Spectrum (functional analysis)Address spaceEntire functionPerspective (visual)CausalityComputer animation
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Normed vector spaceSoftware testingImplementationSpectrum (functional analysis)Open sourceVisual systemTouchscreenScalabilitySymbol tableSoftwareComputer-generated imageryOpen sourceSet (mathematics)InformationSoftwareSlide rulePhysical systemEmailProjective planeKey (cryptography)Spectrum (functional analysis)Personal digital assistantSoftware developerWebsiteSymbol tableLink (knot theory)Internet service providerBuildingNumberGoogolUniform resource locatorInstance (computer science)DialectSoftware testingMultiplication signSystem callRoboticsHydraulic jumpLattice (order)Visualization (computer graphics)Flow separationMereologyProduct (business)InternetworkingPoint (geometry)CausalityDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Computer animation
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Web 2.0Power (physics)SoftwareUniverse (mathematics)TwitterEmailMultiplication signProcess (computing)Computer animation
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Open sourceOpen setComputer animation
Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:04
Oh, hello, everyone. It's really nice to be joining from this end. Would have loved to be there, but it's really good to be here as well. My name is Anitha Ihuaman and I'm joining the call from Nigeria. Today I'm going to be speaking on the topic,
00:24
embracing accessibility in open source. So let me get my screen. So before we get into the section, a little bit about me. I am a software developer advocate and a technical writer at API 7.
00:42
I'm also an open source advocate and I contribute to a number of open source communities like Leah 5 and Kails. And I also love cats. So yeah, that's all about me. Let's get into the topic for today. Now we're talking about accessibility. Lots of times our attention is drawn
01:02
to either people with visibility challenges or hearing difficulties and all of that. But it's actually goes far beyond that when it comes to accessibility and then bringing accessibility to open source is like an even broader area because in open source,
01:21
when we talk about diversity and inclusion, we're looking at mostly either gender or personalities or location, all of that. But we're going to discuss a more in-depth aspect of accessibility, diversity and inclusion in open source as well in this section. Now, the World Health Organization has recorded
01:44
that over a billion persons in the world, that's the world we are in today, has persons who are experiencing a form of disability. And with this record, it shows that one out of five women experience a form of disability in their life.
02:02
And 46% of these persons are within the ages of 60 and above and of course, we have like one out of 10 children also who experience disability. And why being our website, very little or less attention is put towards catering for the needs of these persons
02:24
on especially in open source. Cause yes, I noticed that most open source software focus more on getting the work done rather than how the users actually experience this software or this website while going through it.
02:40
And that's what we're going to be discussing during this section today. During this topic, we're going to be looking at what exactly accessibility is all about, the types of disabilities that exist out there and how open source processes relate to adaptive accessibility software and why accessibility matters in open source exactly,
03:03
how web accessibility can be measured and how open source communities can improve on the accessibility for their softwares and how open source and the different open source accessibility tools that exist out there. So, well, let's get to it already.
03:22
So to begin with, let's look at the definition of accessibility. Like I said earlier, several softwares that have been developed that are open source have the difficulties or the problems of accessibility. And then how would you say that?
03:41
Or why would I actually say that? And look, for instance, I've gone to a lot of websites that I know that this website solves a problem for the mass, for the greater good, of course. But then when you go to the website, you ask this question, was there a designer production phase of this project?
04:01
Like that's always the first question I'll ask, was there a designer going through this? Cause either the colors do not fit, the color contracts do not fit or are not like suitable for the website or the texts are not like visible for people to actually go through. So like all of these are some of the challenges that I have experienced in open source softwares
04:21
that I want to discuss on during this section. And of course, more and more companies are getting aware of the concept of accessibility. But when it comes to creating these softwares, it's more often, it becomes a more difficult challenge for people. And although that most of these projects and softwares are developed to be accessible,
04:42
it doesn't actually cater for all of the disabilities that exist out there. So accessibility is simply practicing or making your website as many people as possible. And of course, we traditionally think of being of this to the aspect of only disability and practice how to make sites accessible
05:03
and benefits other groups as well. Such as persons that use different devices, persons that use that the bandwidth is not like steady or strong enough to support the website and all of that. We also look at persons that are old
05:20
or people that are either fiscally challenged and all of that. So what actually makes a website or what can we see should exist on a website that classify as accessible? Well, when developing a program, you should also aside considering that we're going to have the mouse, the keyboard and the monitor, which are the basic standards of a website,
05:42
the users, the designer should also look out for the less conventional methods of building these. And we're talking about these disabilities that I mentioned earlier, taking into recognition all of these and putting into production or development of that particular project
06:03
to make sure that these features are implemented. So it's not only fixing or solving the projects for, it's not only solving the problem for people all around the world. Of course, that's what open source is all about, bringing out code that's available for everyone, right? So these products are not only available for everyone,
06:21
but they're also being able to be used by every single person from different parts of the world. So what are the types of disabilities that we're looking at? Now we have various types, but now let me give a quick example with this diagram here. Now take this building, for instance, to be a library.
06:40
And of course, let's take this library to be open source or an open source software. Now you're trying to assess this open source software. And like you can see, the staircase is like the first thing you take note of. You have to walk. This is like the only entrance to this building, right? So now let's take it as an open source software. Imagine someone who is physically challenged
07:01
and probably had an accident a day before, and is not able to climb the staircase like a normal person would. This staircase is going to be a barrier for him. Now imagine someone who is physically challenged as well, who has difficulties with their vision and all of that. Being able to get through this staircase might also be a challenge for this kind of person.
07:23
And also look at persons who are heavily pregnant, for instance. Climbing this staircase might even be another very tedious problem for them. And so now as an open source software, being able to assess this entire building, it's not like, it's not inclusive for everyone, of course,
07:41
because most persons who have to like go through more stress than other persons just to enjoy or go assess all the features that this building has, or all the books that exist in this library. So yes, that's basically what we're going to, we're talking about accessibility. So there are different types of accessibility, of course. We have the vision disability.
08:06
The vision disability is, this includes people with blindness or low level vision or color blindness and all of that. So any particular challenge that you might be experiencing that makes you not able to view contents
08:21
like other persons would, then we can actually consider that as a vision disability. And the World Health Organization has estimated that over 285 million persons actually have one or two visual impairments in the world. And this means that,
08:41
imagine you're developing your websites and it doesn't take into recognition these 285 million persons and that's rather discouraging, don't you think? And we're also looking at the physical disabilities and the percentage of adults with physical disabilities
09:02
and functioning is about 16%, of course, because accidents happen every day. It's not like something that's planned, but it just happens. And you might just be unfortunate to lose a finger or an entire arm or both arms or whichever one it is,
09:21
but then it becomes a disability for you. And of course it's a challenge for you. And this could be permanent, it gotta be a permanent disability or a temporal or a situational one. Now, if you look at this picture by the left here, this was gotten from the Microsoft inclusive design toolkit
09:41
that actually highlights different ways you can actually take into recognition inclusive design while developing or building your software. Now you can see that it has the different types of disabilities that could actually people go through. And it also gives the forms
10:01
which these disabilities come in. Like I said, it could either be permanent, it could either be temporal or situational. For instance, the one with the physical disabilities, you could have like a one arm, which is permanent from a recent accident or not, or you could just have a little injury that affects your tone and you're not able to use your keypad
10:22
or your keyboard as you would. For instance, I'm a technical writer. Imagine I have to like lose one finger right now. I don't know how that would make me feel cause I'll most likely feel bad about it, but that would actually affect my typing definitely. And thanks to a feature that Google doc has
10:41
that you can actually read out the text you want to write. I can use that in a situation like that to type out my text without having to use my keyboard, which is really, really awesome for looking out for persons who experience physical disabilities or such. Then we're also looking at another type of disability, which is the cognitive disability.
11:01
Now this talks about your ability to actually understand things. And this we're looking at in this situation, we're looking at people that either have difficulties reading texts as it should be, or actually experience it sometimes
11:20
when I see like a sentence that is very, very long. And then I start from the last word to read first word. I don't know how that happens, but cause the text gets too long. So I have to look for the shortest way to understand it. And so many persons experience this and it's actually more difficult for some persons to actually read texts like this. So if you have a website that has very tiny texts
11:41
that does support for either maximizing the text or zooming in, it's a bit difficult for persons who experience this type of disabilities, of course, or let's say your website provides only very technical terms and persons are not able to like digest your contents properly. And this would be a disability for them as well.
12:01
Then we also have the literacy disability. And this is for persons who are not able to read or cannot relate to children for instance, or elderly persons who are, or even illiterate, persons who are not able to like go to school to understand how to read and write. So now this can be a disability.
12:21
It is not like the very, the other disabilities where you have to lose a part of the body, but then it affects them in a way because if you're not able to read, you definitely not feel excited about that. And we also have the hearing impairment for persons who have one hearing challenge or another. Now various people have various levels of hearing losses
12:42
and this can range from the mild to the profound cases. And according to World Health Organization, about 466 million persons in the world experience hearing disabilities. Now that's to show you that your website that you develop that does not support
13:01
translating text into audio is not actually favoring these people. And you can imagine for 466 million persons not being able to assess your website like other persons would. Now that is not rather an exciting thing to, for me to say as a user or as a developer, of course.
13:23
Now let's move forward to how does, how do these accessibility or these, how does open source relate to these adaptive accessibility softwares? Now in open source, we're talking about code that is made accessible and available to all.
13:41
Now some of open source core principles that actually take notes of these, there are quite a number of these, but I'm going to highlight just a few. You see that there is actually a lap and overlap between open source and the principles and also what accessibility standards are trying to achieve.
14:06
One of which is community. For instance, in open source, we always try to prioritize community because without the community, the code won't exist and without the code, or without the support of the community,
14:20
of course, the code will not be sustained. And of course, that's what accessibility is trying to do. Develop softwares that are available for the common good or accessible to every single person, which includes the community, of course. And then we also look at transparency. Now, whether you're developing software or solving a business problem,
14:42
we all have access to the information and materials and people need access to these information. So imagine where I'm not able to assess a particular information on your website because of my disability or something like that. And that doesn't actually achieve the goal or the purpose of transparency at all, does it?
15:02
Another thing that overlaps between accessibility and open source, we look at empathy. Now, open source projects are built to serve the greater good. Now, that and that exactly what accessibility is also looking to achieve,
15:21
to develop projects that not only is going to be used by everybody, but then solves the problems of every single person that comes across this project. And of course, open source also looked at within the same direction. And so, you can see how those two overlap against each other as well.
15:41
And finally, we're going to be looking at inclusion. Open source and adaptive software consider inclusion as a priority. And when I'm talking about adaptive softwares, I'm talking about softwares that prioritize accessibility. Now, we're talking, they consider inclusion as a priority. And so, when planning a project,
16:02
we're often expected to consider inclusive designs, of course, look beyond just designing to solve a problem, but then solve a problem for every single person. And when we're talking about every single person, we're talking about persons that are perfectly okay and persons that are physically challenged or experiencing one disability or another.
16:23
Now, this means that the product is going to serve a vast array of user spectrum. So, it doesn't have to be just people from different regions of the world or people that speak different languages anymore or people that have different sexual orientations anymore. We're looking beyond all of that.
16:41
We're looking at people that either, for instance, you're trying to use a software that you're trying to use a software and only for you to realize that you have vision impairment and the software colors do not align with you. Let's say you're looking at the software
17:01
and then you can't actually read the text because the color contrast that is used for that particular software is disturbing to your vision. And that would actually be disturbing, right? So, in open source, you're trying to be inclusive with all of these to build websites that not only are going to be used by people from different parts of the world, but then people that have some challenges like ADHD,
17:23
autism or hearing aids and vision impairments can actually benefit from this software equally like a normal person would. So, why does accessibility matter exactly in open source? Let's look at that. For several reasons, you might be wondering
17:40
if open source softwares do not already take into recognition accessibility, but I don't think that is actually completely true because majority of open source softwares right now focus on let this software fix this problem. Yes, the technicalities and the development part
18:01
of that software might be in other, but then let's look beyond the purpose or the problem that software is trying to fix. Let's look at the persons that this software is going to serve. So, now why does accessibility matter in open source? First and foremost, we're looking at outreach.
18:24
Like I said, I highlighted earlier that 15 billion persons, sorry, 1 billion persons in the world are actually disabled. That's 15% of the world's population. Now, imagine that 15 billion persons are not able to use your software.
18:42
Now, for a product that is just starting up, imagine you lose 15 billion persons being able to use your software because you didn't consider accessibility during the development phase, but then you consider it's probably because someone brought up an issue or reported your site to all of the legislative bodies
19:02
responsible for accessibility and all of that. So, now you're only hindering your projects from reaching a vast number of persons. And of course, it's going to affect the development of that particular project. Now, open source software is also care about
19:21
accessibility because of diversity and inclusion. And this, if you've gone through open source, you'll see that it is a priority. There are several bodies that actually exist that are responsible for taking care of them or measuring or tracking the diversity, equity and inclusion in open source. One of which is the Chaos Foundation
19:41
that I'm a member of. So, as Chaos, we've developed some metrics and analytics that can be helped to measure open source software, open source events and see how they actually support diversity, equity and inclusion. And one of the metrics we take into key,
20:04
we put so much attention into is accessibility. And this is because a lot of persons bring their comment. You might not hear them tell you directly, but people always have one say or the other about an event that they attended that was not accessible or a website that they use that was not accessible
20:22
or didn't favor the particular disability and that is wrong. Now, I also draw a quick attention back to the Twitter audio feature that was released sometime back. If you notice, that feature was meant to be the feature.
20:42
I mean, when you think of, yeah, this is something new, the world will benefit from this, it was meant to be that kind of feature. But then several persons were disadvantaged by the introduction of that feature. Imagine I dropped a long audio of five minutes and then like lots of persons on my timeline are not able to read or hear that particular audio
21:03
because of course they have some hearing impairment or something like that. And that actually didn't take, that is not taking into recognition, diversity and inclusion at all. So as chaos, we try to track all of this and make sure that a project or an event
21:20
prioritizes these metrics like accessibility to make sure that it is in order before we can consider this project or these events diverse and inclusive. And that because diversity and inclusion are priority, like the key principles of open source, we try to keep these standards as effective as possible.
21:44
And then we also looking at the project sustainability. Now when we're talking about a project sustainability due to how fast technologies are advancing, several projects are now seeing the relevance or actually adopting the need for accessibility for their products. And this is because so many reports have been made
22:02
to the legislative bodies about a product not being accessible. So many persons are learning from the mistakes of other softwares. Now, like I said, in the case of Twitter, there were several reports that were dropped about that particular feature. And then we got a feedback from Twitter saying
22:20
they're going to like rectify that, but not so much was done afterwards. But a lot of organizations have tried to, you know, learn from mistakes like these to implement it in their softwares to make sure they don't also get like sued for not being able to meet the accessibility of this. And imagine you actually,
22:40
your project does not follow up with these trends. Your project does not actually take into recognition all of these, and still doesn't support accessibility after all of the softwares around or all of the softwares that we're used to have adopted this. This only means that people will slowly, your project or your software will slowly become obsolete
23:02
and a lot of persons who don't actually see the need to either contribute to it or to tell another person about, no matter how effective that project solves the problem, if it doesn't solve the problem for the entire, for the larger spectrum, then not a lot of persons would refer that. Personally, I wouldn't refer a project
23:21
that does not solve a problem for me in one way or another to another person. And I know so many other, so many persons would do the same. So imagine that affecting the sustainability of your open source project. And we're also looking at the more people benefit. Now by designing a project for someone
23:40
with a permanent disability, someone that is actually experiencing maybe a situation or disability. Let's say I lost my finger, like the example I gave earlier, I lost my finger, but then thanks to the feature with being able to type text with audio, I'm able to actually benefit. Although I'm not like permanently disabled,
24:02
I was able to benefit from this. So like looking at the fact that not only are people with disabilities going to benefit from this, other persons too are also going to benefit from this. For instance, being a mother that just gave birth to a child and is trying to breastfeed the child
24:22
and also use a system or a phone for instance, there might be so much for her to handle which have both hands of course. So having features that actually allow you flexibly use your software or without even while your hands are occupied is going to play a major role for not only persons with disabilities.
24:43
Now you can see how that affects the larger population and not just the minorities that are affected by these disabilities. And then we're also looking at the emotional context of it. As a user or as a contributor, I can see that if I use a particular open source tool
25:02
and the design is accessible and I find the design accessible, I would definitely see the need to tell or spread the word about that particular product. Now I'm going to say the best things about that particular product and the features that I encountered
25:21
on that particular product. And do you know how happy that made me feel? Exactly, so imagine how many persons the product is satisfying by just fulfilling the need for accessibility. And also why, another thing to also take into consideration is the legislative bodies that are responsible for this.
25:42
Of course, we have like several legislative bodies that are coming up to track and monitor accessibility all around the world, particularly for our websites. And so not avoiding being sued by disabled persons or persons with disabilities
26:01
to these legislative bodies would save your product a lot more harm. And that is also a thing to take into recognition. So how can web accessibility be measured? There are different ways you can actually address
26:21
or test the accessibility of your websites or your software. You can do this manually or automatically. There are several open source tools that you can actually implement and use automatically without having to write too much code to test the accessibility for your website. Or you can actually do this manually by developing the code to check all of these
26:43
during the testing phase. But yeah, using the automatic saves a lot of stress. And you can do this by following the standards that are set by the W3 processes and the Web Accessibility Initiative. So these two bodies came together
27:01
to form these standards that you see down here. We're talking about the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, the Uttering to Accessibility Guidelines and the User-Agent Accessibility Guidelines. Now, so the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines explains how you can make your website more accessible to people with disabilities.
27:22
Now this has like three, it has been updated into three phases so far. I think the last was 2018. The first was just to have the basic standards of your website, let your websites be able to be used by mouse and the keyboard and then the navigations on your keyboard and all of that.
27:41
Then the second version was where they didn't realize that this is not actually addressed all the accessibility challenges. And then we had to take into recognition the hearing aids, the speaking, the speech and all of that and implement it.
28:00
And so this Web Content Accessibility Guidelines get us for all of that. And then looking at the Uttering to Accessibility Guidelines, it explains how you can, how to make the uttering tools themselves accessible. And this uttering tools, so that people with disabilities can create web contents and help authors create more web content.
28:21
And this focuses particularly for persons that are building this website or contributing to this website. You know, all of these tools to help this process achieve an accessible website. And then we're also looking at the User-Agent Accessibility Guidelines. And these guidelines explain how users can,
28:41
how to make user agents such as your browser or your media player accessible to people. Like a quick example is being, using VLC in a public place or trying to use your VLC in a public place. Of course, you're not physically challenged in any way.
29:01
You don't have any form of disabilities, but because of the situation that you find yourself in, the noise might not allow you to hear all of that. And that is where you see most of these media players support audio translations and subtitles. So you can read the content that is being said
29:21
without actually having to stress your ears, just hear what is being said in that particular audio you're trying to play in public. And there are three standards that follow the main, this, there are three principles that follow these accessibility standards. They're given the acronym PORE.
29:42
Now this, the P stands for perceivable. Now we're talking about your websites being, your content being able to make sense to all the users. Like I said earlier, most persons are not like literates. They're not, they don't have the privilege of being educated. And so they might not be able to read your content
30:05
and understand it to the best of their abilities. So does your websites provide content that is perceivable to these persons as well? Does this solve their needs? Does it actually provide information that these persons can also learn from?
30:22
And also we're looking at operable. Once one can say that the site's operable, if a user is able to navigate the site easily. So how are the users able to actually go through your site and find different places? So I'm going to draw an ascension to this. I've come across in lots of open source projects
30:43
that although they have like so many contents on the websites, I mean so many, I mean, like in detail, like there's so much detail that you'd be scared about the detail that you're seeing on the website. The details are not like easily accessible. Now, if I'm looking for an area on that particular,
31:00
how to set up that particular website, I have to like ask someone who is more experienced with that particular tool or something like that, or doing lots of Googling and that is a challenge as well. So your website is expected to be operable in the most easy and efficient way possible.
31:21
And then we also have understandable, which stands for your projects being able to be understood by several persons, by several persons and users and we're looking at the spectrum from persons who are experiencing ADHD or like being able to digest contents fast.
31:44
Of course, we know that some persons digest contents faster than other persons, but then it's your website. Does your website provide resources that can actually be digested by this person in the best ways possible? And this is what this principle is talking about. And then finally we have the robust. So does your website supports all of the technologies?
32:04
Before I changed my system to this particular one, I was using an old Mac. And so whenever I tried to run softwares like Docker or Kubernetes on it, throughout that day, my system would be hitting
32:20
like I put it in a microwave or something like it, it was so hot. And I might not be able to do any of that major tasks because my system would slow every single thing I'm doing down. Being able to swipe left or swipe right became so difficult. And so if your software does not support persons who use either old devices
32:42
that it's not reliable on old devices or they're in areas where the network provision is not as steady, as solid as in other places, all of that needs to be taken into recognition. And that's what this principle is focusing on.
33:00
So how can open source communities improve these accessibility in software development? So accessibility is not, of course I've highlighted how a lot of persons have heard and discussed accessibility during their production phase at all.
33:22
Of course, it's not a new thing in the software engineering. So many developers are familiar with the concept of accessibility, building accessible websites. So many persons have spoken about this at conferences, written articles on the relevance of accessibility for a website. But then the major problem is being able to prioritize
33:43
this for each open source software that exists out there. Cause we know that so many open source software today do not actually support accessibility for most of the, disabilities that we mentioned earlier, and even more that were not probably mentioned.
34:03
And so how can open source improve on these, on the accessibility of these softwares? And first is to recognize exclusion. Now accessibility is rarely taught as a fundamental skill in engineering or designing schools.
34:21
And yet accessibility is a technology that is needed for every software or tool that you're building. And you might be able to spot the different, you might not be able to spot the different biases as an individual who is not experiencing any form of difficulties.
34:41
You might not be able to highlight or spot these accessibility challenges. But someone who actually experienced, who has experienced this will tell you that I went through this particular software and I can tell you it wasn't accessible. And so by working closely with excluded members in the community, of course,
35:01
we're talking about open source. So there are definitely persons amongst us who are actually going through one or two of these disabilities. And working closely with these persons will help us identify the exclusion that has been given to these persons. Now, just like when we, the concept of diversity and inclusion
35:22
was very new in open source. Most persons were like, they're not taking their skills are not prioritized. Like the design for instance, I know so many websites were developed back in the day without the design insights. So like design was like the last phase of thinking
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when it comes to building more softwares. And so when you see the software, it solves the problem quite all right, but then the design does not look like it's going to solve the problem. Cause design either looks very, very shitty in one way or another. And so recognizing bringing these persons that have been excluded biasly
36:02
into the team in the planning stage of these softwares will be a good place to actually recognize these exclusions that exist on our open source softwares and also thinking inclusively. By thinking inclusive, we're talking about not only looking at
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the inclusion of gender or the inclusion of location or the inclusion of race and all of that, we're looking at inclusion on the accessible end. Now your website is available, yes. It's meant to solve a problem for the mass, yes.
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But then how about the minorities that are disabled? How about the 15% of the world population that are not able to access your websites comfortably? And they also achieve this. Now, when you think or when you look back to this, you'll be able to understand how and the best ways you can actually approach this.
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Another way you can actually address or improve the accessibility of your open source software is to implement inclusive designs. Like I said, it's one thing to develop a product that solves a problem, but then it's one thing to actually see that it solves a problem for all. And so improving these inclusive designs
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by bringing persons that have the experience. There are lots of persons that actually specialize on disabilities and accessibility features for websites. So bringing this person towards the planning or design phase of your website or the designers having an insight
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or an idea of what accessibility or importance of accessibility in the particular website would be a great place to actually start when implementing this design in an accessible manner. And also learn from the difference and the diversities by considering the vast number of users
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and contributors spectrum. So how many persons are using this software for instance? The entire world, of course, open source. So like when you're building, you know that you're not the only person who is meant to be using this. You're not the only person who's going to be contributing this. So now learn from the vast number of persons that are going to be coming through this.
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And this means you need fresh and diverse perspective every single day while planning this particular software. Now to work together and to reach out to even persons that you're aware that yes, they have more experience with this. So like bringing these diverse perspective would be a great place to also get,
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address this vast range of contributor and user spectrums. And also thinking globally. Now by thinking globally, I mean, just like the other points that I mentioned earlier, it's going to solve the problem for the entire world.
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Now people think differently. People see things differently. The way your network or your internet might work on your end, or your part of the world might not be the same way it's work on my part of the world. Cause I know that days when I jump on meetings like this now I'm not until I recently upgraded to like the best internet providers that I'm aware of.
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If I get on calls like this, I'll be sounding like a robot most times. And it's going to be really, really crazy. And so when you're building softwares, you should consider that there are regions in the world that the network might not be as solid as, or like they don't actually have access to these tools. Okay, I recently joined a new team.
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For instance, I recently joined a new team and we had the difficulty of using Google Meets because some persons do not have the privilege of using Google Meets in their location. So that was a very difficult thing for us to communicate as a team. And so when you're building your software, you should not only think of the region of developers
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or the region which the teammates are in, but you should think globally on different ends of the world. What if this goes to, if there's something called the end of the world, yes. What if there's someone at the end of the world who is going to be using this? How are they going to benefit from my software? So like try thinking globally as a team
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or as an open source community when working towards building an accessible software. And also enforcements. Now we've read about this, we've advocated about accessibility. It exists in most of the documentation that you read about open source softwares,
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but it's one thing to write about things, it's one thing to speak about things, and it's another thing to practice it. So like try to instill this concept of accessibility as a priority amongst the teammates, amongst the contributors, amongst members of the community. And so every single person that comes into this project or comes to work about on this particular project
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to know that even if I'm bringing a feature, I should consider persons that are going to own disability or another, and this project should solve the problem for them as well. And so when every single person on the team has the concept or beliefs in the idea of accessibility,
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it would be a lot easier to actually enforce this and achieve the accessibility for your websites. And then using automated accessibility testing tools, like I said, there are quite a number of those out there that you don't have to like develop these manually. You can just get your website, put the link there, and then run it, and it'll tell you
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if your website is accessible in one way or the other. So it depends on which accessibility you're focusing on, but it's always advised to focus on the different spectrums that exist. Cause like I've been saying, the users are going to be, your users might be at the end of the world.
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So you should think of persons that are on the end of the world as well. And so here are some of the open source assistive and accessibility softwares and tools that exists. Now several projects have tried to implement the concept of accessibility, several open source projects,
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but of course this is not a thing or a goal that is going to be achieved overnight. But then we also have some of these assistive tools to help you through, like them, the Vinox, a product by Linox that is going to help, that's optimized for users visual impairments.
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So you could actually use this and introduce it to your open source community and developers as well. Then we have the auto hotkeys, of course, for persons who have the mouse click and all, you can also work with that. While trying to set up this slide, I got an email that there's this software
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I was supposed to install on my phone to help me navigate with my slide. And that is actually a very brilliant one cause imagine you're not able to use your system for everything, being able to actually use softwares like that to navigate with your phone, it will be a good thing to consider and think about. So like that's also one assistive tool you can look at
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and the more various symbol sets, which is also another tool that focuses on pictographs and symbols, making sure that these devices provide graphic information in the best ways possible.
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So, okay, this picture is not clear as I expected it to, but what definitely, yes, I'm about to round off. Yeah, so while developing your website, you should get yourself out of the picture of the developer
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or the engineer and look from the user's end. So if I'm a user and I have, I unfortunately experienced an accident today, will your software or your open source software still serve the purpose that I needed to, or if I unfortunately lose my sight today,
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will it actually fix this problem for me? Will I be able to use the software just like I've been using it on other days? Now, I'm going to leave this with a quick quote from Tim Berners, the inventor of the worldwide web, which says, the power of the web is in its universality. And so access to every single person, regardless of their disability is an essential aspect.
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And so we're not just building softwares that they're going to be lots of contributors to come and implement their code and go away. But then we're looking at a more global end where we're fixing problems for each and every single one of these person is coming in, regardless of their disabilities. And so if there are any questions right now,
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Adam, take them. And if not, thank you so much for your time. It was really great sharing these and also learning more about these during my preparation process as well. You can also contact me on Twitter and you can reach out to me via email
45:20
or even my website at anitahuman.dev. Thank you very much.