Identify a process or method of collecting feedback on desktop accessibility of Fedora Workstation, help reporters land their feedback in the right upstream or do it on their behalf, and document the process.
Last year, the Fedora Accessibility Working Group formed and we began our first meetings with a mix of engineering and mindshare members. Inadvertently, while we focused on contribution areas of a11y, we have also received user feedback across multiple channels (chat, issues, and forum topics). However, since our Working Group currently does not have representation from the Workstation WG, it is hard for us to respond to queries from users about broken features or provide updates on upstream progress to improve a11y technologies.
A process for accepting and triaging a11y feedback is not the only way this could be solved, but it might be the most direct. The challenge we have in the A11y WG is that we are not equipped to respond to user feedback, even though users come to us with feedback and we do genuinely care about this space and helping improve things.
Another possible option would be to nominate a representative from the Workstation WG and/or Spins into the A11y WG, either formally or informally.
Here are some ideas on what this could look like.
The Workstation WG comes up with a user-facing process that guides users to share feedback, bug reports, and feature requests on accessibility features. This would require a documented process, someone triaging collected feedback, and either prioritizing work in Workstation or sharing feedback upstream when applicable.
This is essentially a pre-step to reporting a real bug, as some of the feedback we received during the exploratory phase of the A11y WG is that is difficult to know where exactly to file bugs and share feedback on accessibility technology and tools available in Fedora Workstation.
Another way to try this is to designate a member of the Fedora Workstation WG as an Accessibility Liaison and work as a partner with the Fedora A11y WG. With the support of a member of the Workstation WG, we would be more equipped to respond to user feedback authoritatively, and help direct feedback to the right place upstream when applicable. Going this route, we would direct accessibility user feedback to the Fedora A11y WG instead of the Fedora Workstation WG.
This could either be a formal or informal nomination by the Workstation WG, but ideally, this capacity is maintained by the Workstation WG, so that the liaison/seat is always filled in the event that someone has to handover to someone else.
Your ideas welcome. Our goal is to make Fedora desktops the best possible option for people with accessibility needs. Are we missing something in the other two ideas to accomplish this?
The Fedora A11y WG makes strides towards our vision and mission:
I've already created an a11y tag in this project, but the Workstation WG generally does not want user-facing processes, so I'm not sure what we should do here.
a11y
Ultimately, bugs need to be reported on the correct upstream issue tracker. Maybe Workstation WG can help figure out what that is sometimes, but we don't have any a11y experts, so I'm not sure we're the best group to help with this?
Have you considered getting in touch with the GNOME a11y team in #a11y:gnome.org?
That's too much for a Fedora team to deal with. Ultimately, we need a process that allows a funnel to work, rather than forcing them to figure out how to interact with every random group.
Metadata Update from @catanzaro: - Issue tagged with: meeting-request
There are a couple of reasons it would be helpful to partner with the Workstation WG to improve accessibility.
First, the Workstation WG are the ultimate owners of the Workstation Edition. At the end of the day, what goes into it passes through this team. Therefore it would be nice to on the same page with your team as to the expectations for accessibility that we should be aiming for and also how to help address shortcomings as we come across them. We can and probably will work with upstream, but we also need to have communication with the team that packages it all together. I would go a step further to suggest that, in keeping with accessibility as goal of the Fedora Project, that the Workstation WG should work with us in taking ownership of this area so we can improve things.
Second, we would benefit from a liaison within Gnome. While we independently want to work upstream, the Accessibility WG is limited in terms of manpower. On top of trying to address accessibility concerns, we would have to start building the relationships from scratch. In some cases, like with me, there are also technical hurdles which I will not be able to cross and which Gnome developers are not necessarily obliged to respond to. Because you already have those relationships it can help to find short and long term solutions faster than what we could do alone.
In terms of the potential solutions, I think the two options offered by Justin work. A third option could simply be an openness with help the A11y WG when we come across issues. For example, we can capture a bug in our own bug tracker but bring it to the Workstation WG in chat or a meeting or somehow to get clarification on what this bug actually is and what the right next steps are. Helping with diagnosis would be a big help because we don't have the familiarity with the editions to understand what some of these problems are.
We still have this topic tagged for a future meeting, but for avoidance of doubt: this is a policy working group, not a development group. i.e. we won't be able to help with bugs or software development and such things. But we can certainly help with coordination, or occasionally try to raise interest in particular bugs, etc.
Metadata Update from @ngompa: - Issue untagged with: meeting-request - Issue tagged with: a11y, meeting
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