[swiki-bugs] Fwd: Squeak Wiki - hacked big time!! & continuing to be hacked

David T. Lewis lewis at mail.msen.com
Fri Dec 10 02:12:46 UTC 2004


On Thu, Dec 09, 2004 at 11:44:16AM -0000, Frank Shearar wrote:
> Darius <squeakuser at inglang.com> wrote:
> > - People who can't see
> >      are more likely to be readers than submitters and are 
> > unlikely to be Squeak
> > users due to its graphic/mouse dependant nature. 
> > Alternatively, they can e-mail
> > a sighted person to post for them.

Where did this "fact" come from?

> OK, I don't know how many blind people use Squeak. We probably have no blind
> people using Squeak. Because blind people have no interest in Squeak? Or
> because blind people can't use Squeak? Yes, Squeak has many accessibility
> issues as you point out: blind people, or people with dexterity problems
> will find it very difficult to use Squeak. It's something we should work
> on, but that's a topic for another thread.
> 
> However, just because Squeak's (currently) inaccessible to segments of the
> population doesn't mean we should willingly and knowingly disenfranchise
> those segments of the population even further.

Well said, thanks Frank.

Many years ago I used to participate in a little community BBS in Ann
Arbor called "ArborNet" that used dial in phone lines connected to an
ancient souped-up Altos unix box running PicoSpan conferencing software.
One of our very active participants was blind. I don't recall that his
ratio of posting to reading was effected by his lack of sight, and I
sure *do* remember how incredibly important it was for him to be able
to communicate with all of us on an equal basis.

I once met him in person and realized that whatever had led to his
blindness had also effected him terribly in other ways, and I saw how
important and good is was for him to be able to transcend these things
through this new "high tech" (300 baud!) medium.

Squeak is a new medium also. It's understandable that we pay a lot
of attention to the visual parts of Squeak, but there are other
kinds of thinking and expression, and there are all kinds of people
in the world.

What would we do with Squeak if all of us were blind? Something
great I think, but different.

Dave




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