[FEEDBACK NEEDED] Accessibility Menu

[psygreg]

I plan on adding an Accessibility menu to the application, that will provide useful tools for those with special needs. However, I'm not exactly equipped to answer their demands with the best tools on Linux for their needs. I'd like to see your opinions on tools that should be added.

[WagnerGFX]

I don't use any of the big accessibility tools as all I need is some glasses and small tweaks. But since I did some small research a while back, I'll leave here some of the info I gathered. I hope it helps.

The first important concept is to know that accessibility has many levels. They can be minor adjustments for those with some difficulties, or major softwares that are extremely important for those with disabilities.

My example

• I increase UI size and fonts a little to improve readability and avoid the need to snipe the button to close windows.
• I switch themes to dark or low contrast ones as my astigmatism makes it harder to read when the contrast is too high.
• I switch some audio sources to mono with keyboard commands to listen to youtube as voices in stereo feel distracting for some reason.
• I use the app Keymapper to create custom keyboard layers and change some stuff from the keyboard instead of using the UI.

These are mostly minor accessibilities or just some workflow improvement tools, but similar adjustments may be extremely important for other with more difficulties, like needing much bigger fonts and higher contrast or needing keyboard remappers for disabilities, like only having one arm.

The current state of accessibility in Linux

• Xorg mostly relied on it's specialty, hacks and workarounds, but it worked.
• The move to Wayland broke most accessibility tools like screen reader and key remappers. It has improved now, but it's still not perfect and sometimes updates may break what is working.
• Effort is being made to actually make Wayland support accessibility in it's core, instead of hacks like in Xorg, but progress is still slow.
• Gnome, KDE and COSMIC care about accessibility, and are actively developing solutions.
• The biggest reference in screen reading in Wayland right now is Orca for Gnome.

A well known abbreviation for accessibility is "a11y", so searching for "linux a11y" will land you in some official accessibility info pages and maybe help you find some communities.

Suggestion: Mono Audio

A few weeks ago I was searching for ways to change my Pipewire setup, mostly because I like to switch audio sources from the keyboard, but also because I like to switch to mono sometimes, as I mentioned above.
While researching that, I did found that some people with hearing disabilities want to be able to change the system to mono, but ALSA profiles only present options for stereo or above, never below.
This could be an interesting addition, if even possible.

Suggestion: Bigger title bar buttons

The rounded corners are everywhere lately. I've seen some users, like me, that prefer to move the mouse to the top right corner and close the window, but this doesn't work on some DEs/Themes and their round buttons with small clickable surfaces.
I've seen that there was some gtk style code that could be applied to make those buttons occupy a full square with a much larger area and even paint in red when you hover over it.
It's not much, but it helps when modern designs seem aimed for mouse snipers (pun terribly intended)

Suggestion: Install the OpenDyslexic Font

This is a font for people that have difficulties in reading words, as letter feel like they are flipping and dancing.
The weighted design makes them feel more fixed in place.
Maybe it could be a good idea to have a script to install it and integrate to the system. There is also a monospace version available, for the terminal and coding.

Sources

• Post about Wayland Acessibility
• Video with extra context
• Post on how I made my Pipewire setup
• Gist with the code
• GTK CSS for bigger title bar buttons
• Another CSS for the same purpose
• Open Dyslexic Font