Speaker
Description
Abstract
The handicap accessibility of KDE software has lagged behind both proprietary and open source alternatives. This represents a tremendous barrier toward expanding our enterprise presence, as both public and private organizations have a legal requirement to provide workers and users with software that meets a certain standard of accessibility. The purpose of this talk is to inform KDE developers of how they can directly improve the lives of disabled people while attaining compliance with both open source standards and legal mandates.
The issue of inadequate accessibility has already complicated the deployment of KDE software at organizations such as NASA, and will negatively impact the community's long-term ability to attract contributors. We must ensure KDE software meets modern standards for accessibility so that we can be a healthy, global, and inclusive community that elevates the lives of people through free software.
Presented in this talk:
- Progress and shortcomings since the proposed accessibility goal of 2019.
- Open source standards and legal requirements for accessibility in both the European Union and United States.
- Concrete steps developers can take to incorporate accessibility concerns into the development process.
- Why accessibility improvements benefit the entire KDE community.
Presented by:
- David Cahalane — KDE contributor since 2018. Cloud & Infrastructure Engineer, Bixal
Additional knowledge and expertise provided by:
- Lauren Trimble — Accessibility & Compliance Lead, Bixal
- Christian Hempfling — Plasma Accessibility contributor since 2019.
| Description | Learn to easily incorporate accessibility into the development process and why it is necessary to KDE's growth and sustainability. |
|---|---|
| A short bio | DevOps engineer on US federal government projects that have strict accessibility requirements. Physically disabled contributor who wants others to have access to a quality and "free as in freedom" computing experience. |
