Firefox continues to work to make it accessible and attractive to everyone
On World Day of Persons with Disabilities (organized every 3rd of December), in order to support people with disabilities and with the aim of raising awareness about disability issues and promoting “Design for All” with the intention of guaranteeing the rights of disabled people and integrating them in political, economic and cultural life.
This year's theme was "Solutions for inclusive development: the role of innovation for an accessible and equitable world" and on this occasion, through Jamie Teh, Accessibility Engineer/CTO, Mozilla, Mozilla indicated the progress that has been made in terms of accessibility in your browser.
Jamie Teh, comment the following:
I joined Mozilla in 2017 as an accessibility engineer and quickly became the accessibility technical lead. But years before, he was already deeply involved in the business. I co-created NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access) in 2006, a screen reader for blind and low vision people like me. We wanted Firefox and NVDA to work together as well as possible to give everyone the best possible access to the web.
With NVDA, I've helped change the world for many people with a free and open source screen reader. Now at Mozilla I can do the work on the browser side, making sure Firefox continues to run efficiently with assistive technology while
On this International Day of Persons with Disabilities, I want to take a moment to share how we're working to make Firefox more than just accessible. We want to make sure the browser is equally enjoyable, efficient, and easy to use for everyone, including the more than a billion people around the world who live with disabilities.
Within of the advances that Mozilla presents in the new version of Firefox regarding accessibility, now macOS users are allowed to copy text from images they see in the browser. It could be a data chart, an event flyer, or even a meme.
This feature has clear uses for everyone, but it's actuallyIt is aimed at people with all types of disabilities, since text recognition in Firefox is supports VoiceOver and the built-in screen reader for macOS. A visually impaired person who cannot read small text in an image can also use the feature to extract the copy and enlarge it into a text document to make it easier to read.
One of the joys of inclusive design is creating products that many people can use, but may be particularly beneficial to some.
Text recognition is part of our efforts to make accessibility and inclusion an even bigger part of our process at Mozilla. The Firefox desktop platform and front-end teams involved us from the start so that when the feature is delivered, it's immediately accessible and delicious, rather than just ticking the required boxes.
Firefox has worked hard on screen readers, but it is said that it still has a long way to go. That is why in 2021, the Accessibility Team embarked on a major revision of the Firefox Accessibility Engine, which gives screen readers and other assistive technologies the data they need to serve web content.
After this post, the reactions were diverse. Some applauded the editor for the direction taken, others made suggestions. Like this netizen who declares
“Firefox invented vertical tabs but then forgot about them. Always having to search for the next short-lived plugin made me switch to Edge. I'd love to see that change," or that one that reacts to "We're making Firefox accessible and enjoyable for everyone" with "so don't draw anything in the title bar and let the user decide the scroll size." bar. To get started… ".
In addition to this, Mozilla also took the opportunity to share a little about the plans it has, both at the organizational level and for the browser:
- El new firefox approach in the users it tries to vindicate the organization of Firefox in the central growth of the browser through differentiated user experiences, in addition to the fact that it is mentioned that investments are being reduced in areas such as developer tools, internal tools and software development, features platform and transition from adjacent security/privacy products.
- On the part of the products: Mentions that they are building a new product organization outside of Firefox that will deliver new products faster and develop new revenue streams. And we have seen this with the launch of its initial investments in «Pocket, Hubs, VPN, Web Assembly, as well as security and privacy products«.
- New Emphasis on Technology: Mozilla is a technical powerhouse in the Internet activist movement. The Internet is now the platform that integrates ubiquitous web technologies, but vast new areas are being developed (such as Wasmtime and the Bytecode Alliance's vision of nanoprocessing) so Mozilla says it must expand its vision and capabilities in these areas as well.
- New emphasis on community:
"Fixing" the Internet is a big goal. It is not something we can do alone. We are rethinking the way we collaborate, support and grow our community. This will include ongoing but lighter work with our community on topics like product support and developer relations. - New focus on the economy: mention that the old model where everything was free has significant consequences and that is why they intend to explore a range of different trading opportunities and alternative value exchanges.
finally if you are interested in knowing more about it, you can check the details in the following link.