[BlindRUG] RStudio is now Posit - does this mean anything for us, was: RE: message from Gary

Tue Mar 5 19:41:02 UTC 2024

Hello Henrik and all,

The fund holder committee are aware of accessibility and have partially funded several projects which improve accessibility of R community activities. Improvement in the accessibility of the R Journal is one such endeavour I have been linked to. (The conversion of the back-catalogue to html.)

My original R Journal article was published in 2013, and at some point last year I started drafting the follow-up. What I have to report is that the base R installation remains as accessible as it ever was; that screen reader users must still decide which of the GUI or terminal suits their screen reader and personal skill sets best; that RStudio is as inaccessible as it was back then, but that the increased use of R markdown has created numerous improvements to the accessibility of documents, as both consumers and producers of content.

What I end up with is an absence of optimism that things will get better anytime soon. I have little confidence that the RStudio IDE will improve sufficiently to attract blind novice users who will not pick up  its use as readily as do my sighted students today. I suspect we need an RStudio lite product which removes the clutter but this is conjecture on my part. I used to think this would be helpful for my sighted students too, but comfort levels with IDEs are changing and the value of this argument has eroded.

Use of VS Code as an alternative working environment does provide an alternative for some blind people; I'm not sure though how readily we can expect everyone to want to embrace it. Robin's latest comment implies success, but I can't base my judgement on the most skilful or experienced among the blind users of R.

There are some alternate browser-based front end projects which I hoped to report on, but only one of them has even made it to alpha testing stage. That doesn't make for pleasant reading.

This conversation is already helping me realise that I need to kick my lethargy out the door. 😊

Jonathan

-----Original Message-----
From: BlindRUG <blindrug-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Henrik Bengtsson via BlindRUG
Sent: Tuesday, March 5, 2024 11:10 PM
To: Blind R Users Group <blindrug at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Henrik Bengtsson <henrik.bengtsson at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [BlindRUG] RStudio is now Posit - does this mean anything for us, was: RE: message from Gary

> As a community, perhaps we can speed up the wheels of progress again with a concerted effort targeted at the powers that be. That may be wishful thinking, but we won’t know unless we try.

Related: I think it would be beneficial if there was a go-to "current-state" of report for the accessibility of R. This could be published regularly, say every second year.  I think that would help to increase the awareness in the whole community, and get a sense of progress, and what problems have to be solved.

Maybe such a report could point to a community-driven "Accessibility User Guide to R" book, that would help answer questions like this one here. Assuming Quarto Book can produce accessible HTML output, I think that would be a good candidate. This type of book could also help sighted developers to know what the current problems are, which would help them avoid doing the same mistakes and work towards better solutions.

I think such projects could be a fit for an R Consortium Infrastructure Steering Committee (ISC) grant, especially if it can help improve the technical infrastructure of R. The next application deadline is April 1, and the one after six months later, and so on.
See https://www.r-consortium.org/all-projects/call-for-proposals for details. (Disclaimer: I'm the ISC Chair, but the decision to award proposals is done by all ISC members collectively)

Best,

Henrik

On Tue, Mar 5, 2024 at 1:30 AM Robin Williams via BlindRUG <blindrug at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
>
>
> Thanks to Gary for his thoughtful contribution.
>
>
>
> It is at least vaguely reassuring to know that accessibility at RStudio isn’t a completely dead duck. Over the next week I will endeavour to have a play with the latest build. As a community, perhaps we can speed up the wheels of progress again with a concerted effort targeted at the powers that be. That may be wishful thinking, but we won’t know unless we try.
>
>
>
> From: BlindRUG <blindrug-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Jonathan
> Godfrey via BlindRUG
> Sent: Monday, March 4, 2024 8:28 PM
> To: Seo, JooYoung via BlindRUG <blindrug at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: Jonathan Godfrey <A.J.Godfrey at massey.ac.nz>
> Subject: [BlindRUG] message from Gary
>
>
>
> Hi all,
>
>
>
> Seems Gary is having trouble posting to Blind RUG. He has just sent me a message which I have snipped and clipped.
>
>
>
> See two parts below…
>
>
>
> <part 1 to me specifically, but now shared>
>
>
>
>
>
> Hi. I did survive the cutbacks, but my full-time accessibility role was significantly scaled back.
>
>
>
> Your answer is spot-on; even though RStudio is becoming somewhat accessible on a technical level, the overall UI design is such that I don't know that it will ever be pleasant or efficient to use via screen reader.
>
>
>
> <Part 2 to everyone>
>
>
>
> Hi, I'm the mentioned employee of Posit who is subscribed to this list.
>
>
>
> Most of my time at work is no longer directly focused on accessibility. This is why I've been lurking. I don't want to make promises beyond what I can realistically deliver in my role.
>
>
>
> Progress has been slow. Not zero, but slow. It's now in a place where RStudio is partially accessible to screen readers. However, usability for doing actual work via screen reader is still quite terrible (in my personal, non-scientific opinion).
>
>
>
> I usually make some accessibility fixes in each release of the RStudio IDE, so use the most recent release (2023.12.1) to try out screen-reader support.
>
>
>
> Be aware that a "screen reader mode" needs to be enabled for some features to work. You should get an announcement when you start RStudio with a screen reader running, telling you if the mode is off and which keyboard shortcut to use to enable it. Alt+Shift+/ on Windows. Once it's enabled, it will remain enabled for future sessions.
>
>
>
> For reading previous output in the Console, there is a command to set focus on the output region. On Windows, the shortcut is Alt+Shift+2, or alternatively, Ctrl+backtick (grave). To navigate this region once focused, you must switch the screen reader to browse or virtual cursor mode. We've tried coding this to make that switch happen automatically, but last time I checked it wasn't working consistently. I'm aware of the accessibility features in Visual Studio Code, and certainly would love to incorporate some of their ideas.
>
>
>
> Some significant remaining issues, with links to github, include:
>
> ·  autocomplete popups not announced by screen reader
>
> ·  Console history popup not announced by screen reader
>
> ·  keyboard focus not being well managed when showing different panes
>
> ·  Command palette sluggish with JAWS screen reader
>
> ·  a fundamentally busy and complex user interface
>
> ·  lots of quirks and bugs
>
> This article on RStudio Screen Reader support is still reasonably up-to-date.
>
>
>
> Gary
>
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> =0 More information and useful links about using R as a blind person
> can be obtained at:
> http://r-resources.massey.ac.nz/
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More information and useful links about using R as a blind person can be obtained at:
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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