[BlindRUG] R Studio accessibility

[Godfrey, Jonathan]

Hi all,

I've banged away at the good people at RStudio for a number of years now. They do know they have a problem, but they also have a lack of willingness to fix it. I don't see any harm in more people writing to them, but I'm not convinced this will increase awareness at all. 

Courtesy of a few chats with the RStudio people at the UseR conference last year, I tried to use RStudio in a different setting. RStudio is itself a browser of sorts so we tried to run it through a more standard browser (Firefox and IE at the time). This was a failure, in part because there is so much junk code to interfere with the screen readers (JAWS and NVDA tested) to wade through.

I do think we could do some more testing and have sought assistance from RStudio. My request has met with deafening silence though.

To address some of the specific comments now:
Liz - what sorts of work arounds do you use? Please tell us about them sometime soon.
Vincent: I spend a lot of time teaching sighted students how to use RStudio. Many appreciate the IDE but it is in no way a guaranteed successful improvement to their ability to learning R. Some seem to always find themselves getting lost by having too many tabs and menus as well as not knowing where they ought to be doing things or how. I'm sure that RStudio would prove even more difficult if handed to a blind novice R user. There are many tools in RStudio that I would love to see being used by blind users though. I do think we'd need to wait to introduce RStudio though.

Thanks everyone; do keep discussing this. I do keep archives of some things raised on the list to show to the right people if given a chance.

Jonathan


-----Original Message-----
From: BlindRUG [mailto:blindrug-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Liz Hare via BlindRUG
Sent: Tuesday, 14 March 2017 2:51 a.m.
To: Blind R Users Group
Cc: Liz Hare
Subject: Re: [BlindRUG] R Studio accessibility

Hi all,

I've been using R since before RStudio was a thing, so I'm not sure what it offers. My first instinct is to say I don't need it, but the point about introducing students to R is a really good one. I like my workarounds, but they have a steep learning curve that could be a barrier to someone thinking about a STEM career. I'd be happy to support anything that develops in that direction.

Liz

> On Mar 13, 2017, at 8:23 AM, Martin, Vincent F via BlindRUG <blindrug at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> I would gladly join in, as I think it would much easier to teach blind students to use "
> R" if the R studio IDE was accessible.  
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: BlindRUG [mailto:blindrug-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Marcus Low via BlindRUG
> Sent: Monday, March 13, 2017 8:14 AM
> To: blindrug at nfbnet.org
> Cc: Marcus Low <low.marcus at gmail.com>
> Subject: [BlindRUG] R Studio accessibility
> 
> Dear All
> 
> Would there be any value in a group of us writing to the developers of R Studio regarding its lack of accessibility and encouraging them to take steps to improve it?
> 
> It seems to me we are all using relatively difficult work-arounds - while the ideal would in fact be for an IDE like R Studio to be made accessible. It will not happen quickly and it will not happen if only one or two of us ask - but maybe if a few of us make an appeal then we might be in a better position a few years from now.
> 
> I am keen to hear what others think.
> 
> Thanks
> Marcus
> 
> _______________________________________________
> BlindRUG mailing list
> BlindRUG at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindrug_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for BlindRUG:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindrug_nfbnet.org/vincent.martin%40gatech.edu
> The list archive can be viewed at:
> http://www.nfbnet.org/pipermail/blindrug_nfbnet.org
> More information and useful links about using R as a blind person can be obtained at:
> http://R-Resources.massey.ac.nz
> 
> Look for help using R commands by reading the accessible e-book "Let's Use R Now" compiled by Jonathan Godfrey at:
> http://R-Resources.massey.ac.nz/lurn/front.html
> 
> _______________________________________________
> BlindRUG mailing list
> BlindRUG at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindrug_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for BlindRUG:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindrug_nfbnet.org/doggene%40earthlink.net
> The list archive can be viewed at:
> http://www.nfbnet.org/pipermail/blindrug_nfbnet.org
> More information and useful links about using R as a blind person can be obtained at:
> http://R-Resources.massey.ac.nz
> 
> Look for help using R commands by reading the accessible e-book "Let's Use R Now" compiled by Jonathan Godfrey at:
> http://R-Resources.massey.ac.nz/lurn/front.html


_______________________________________________
BlindRUG mailing list
BlindRUG at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindrug_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for BlindRUG:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindrug_nfbnet.org/a.j.godfrey%40massey.ac.nz
The list archive can be viewed at:
http://www.nfbnet.org/pipermail/blindrug_nfbnet.org
More information and useful links about using R as a blind person can be obtained at:
http://R-Resources.massey.ac.nz

Look for help using R commands by reading the accessible e-book "Let's Use R Now" compiled by Jonathan Godfrey at:
http://R-Resources.massey.ac.nz/lurn/front.html