10 ms·

Chromebook accessibility: Changing the order of mouse buttons is unsupported

96 points by edent 8y ago

jareds 8y ago
So just because this specific person has an issue that doesn't allow them to use a Chromebook they should make a blanket statement that they are inaccessible? I'm totally blind and have had a Chromebook for several years. I got it as a gift because I was interested in its accessibility. I've seen Google make large strides in accessibility in the couple years I've owned it. It went from barely usable to something I am comfortable using as my only computer if I don't need to do any programming. Just because something may not be fully accessible to someone does not mean we should ignore all the work companies have done to move accessibility from nonexistent to decent.
- edent 8y ago
  I'm extremely glad that Chromebooks are accessible to you. But they are not accessible to me. In a similar way to saying a subtitled movie isn't acessible. Sure, it meets the needs of the Deaf community - but not people with low/no vision. Google have done some great things in accessibility - and I regularly work with them. But this specific issue has remained unresolved for too long now.
  - jareds 8y ago
    Have you contacted Google accessibility directly about this instead of writing an angry blog post and hoping it gets enough traction that someone who works at google notices? https://support.google.com/accessibility/answer/7641084?visit_id=636821183286557811-2874298814&rd=1#disability-support https://support.google.com/accessibility/answer/7641084?visi...
    - edent 8y ago
      I've contacted them in public and in private. Over five years. Nothing has helped.
    - opencl 8y ago
      Clearly several people working at Google have already noticed because they replied to the report on the issue tracker about it, and they all said that implementing this would be a good idea.
      - magicalist 8y ago
        > Clearly several people working at Google have already noticed because they replied to the report on the issue tracker about it Those were from before this blog post (most recent was December). Sounds like the problem is prioritization, not convincing them it's a good idea.
    - gnu8 8y ago
      As far as I know, angry blogging is the only way to contact google directly.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > In a similar way to saying a subtitled movie isn't acessible. Sure, it meets the needs of the Deaf community - but not people with low/no vision. Is accessibility generally treated in such a binary sense? If something isn't accessible to everyone, it isn't accessible? (Genuine question. Either answer would be valid. I'd prefer to know how it's used in common parlance.)
    - pgeorgi 8y ago
      > Is accessibility generally treated in such a binary sense? It's not, otherwise closed captioned videos wouldn't be released without audio description tracks (and vice versa).
    - edent 8y ago
      The basis of solidarity is "an injury to one of us is an injury to all of us." If you look at, for example, the WCAG rules on accessibility, you'll see that there are various levels of conformance. Accessibility isn't just about blind people, or deaf people, or people with tremors, or people with cognative impairments. It is about all of us. You and me. One day, you will be old. Your eyes won't be as good as they were and your joints will be stiff. Then someone will tell you that Windows 2038 is accessible because it is voice controlled. That's nice for you, but not much help for someone who has lost their voice. Sorry, I'm rambling. Accessibility means including everyone.
      - luiscleto 8y ago
        That sounds incredibly utopic. Anyone at any time can have a completely new disability which renders any product unusable to them. It is not reasonable to expect companies to have a moral obligation to accommodate every single human being on the planet. Nor would it be economically viable for many products. (disclaimer: that this does not mean I think an effort should not even be made. But there will always be outliers as that is the painful reality we live in. I do think OP is justified in their complaint and wanting more accessibility. But I don't think it is their "right" to expect that demand to be met)
        8y ago
- kuhhk 8y ago
  Hello jareds. I'm curious what you use for programming, since you mentioned you don't use your Chromebook for that.
  - jareds 8y ago
    I use Windows 10 machines and make heavy use of WSL. I use Eclipse as my IDE when doing Java work. I use Jaws for Windows as my primary screen reading software and NVDA occasionally for things it handles better then Jaws. I used to own a Mac but booted it into Windows most of the time once WSL became a thing. In my limited experience the Mac is OK for general computing from an accessibility perspective but does not offer the screen reader customizability and efficiency that Windows does. https://www.freedomscientific.com/Products/Blindness/JAWS https://www.freedomscientific.com/Products/Blindness/JAWS https://www.nvaccess.org/ https://www.nvaccess.org/
- groxr 8y ago
  No, it would not be considered accessible as defined in ISO 9241-171 Ergonomics of human-system interaction - Guidance on software accessibility, and further it may be in conflict with the recently passed European Accessibility Act.
Havoc 8y ago
>Google doesn't want unhealthy people using its products. Seriously? It's just a product that is intentionally stripped down & doesn't cover all edge cases.
- edent 8y ago
  Nice to be called an "edge case". Really makes me feel valued as an individual. There are thousands of unhealthy people who are being deliberately excluded from Google's cheap computing revolution. How many of us do there need to be before we're not an edge case?
  - johnnyfaehell 8y ago
    > There are thousands of unhealthy people who are being deliberately excluded from Google's cheap computing revolution. Remove the word deliberately and you've got the truth. It's not like they sat around the boardroom and said: "You know what, let's make our computers only usable by healthy folk". It just happened, Google has a ton of people who didn't think about this aspect. It wasn't something they planned or even thought about.
    - moftz 8y ago
      You can read all of the comments by the devs who aren't even considering the accessibility option. Remapping mouse buttons come across to them as someone trying to map keyboard shortcuts to the mouse buttons for better productivity in whatever apps they use for work.
      - pgeorgi 8y ago
        > Remapping mouse buttons come across to them as someone trying to map keyboard shortcuts to the mouse buttons for better productivity in whatever apps they use for work. That's because key mapping and button mapping is more or less the same problem, as far as computers are concerned. From the blog: "Evoluent - the manufacturer of my mouse - also provide a handy tool for Windows and Mac so that I can set the mouse buttons up just the way I like them". There's a technical reason for that (actually, two): USB HID allows devices to expose how many buttons they have, plus some characteristics, but it's utterly useless to expose the information that "button 17 is the one in the top right corner when seen from above". The other reason is that USB device vendors (no matter which device type) don't feel the need to implement standards faithfully, so devices need special handling in drivers all the time. So Evoluent provides its own Windows and Mac tool. In the bug linked in the post, the devs are discussing adding such special cases, or - instead, and preferred - providing an API through which third parties (no matter if Evoluent or that chap who can write xinput configs) could develop frontends that could do such configuration. Now, these APIs shouldn't enable third parties to essentially log everything entered by the user. And that's where the discussion is at. I'm not sure if the Evoluent tool reconfigures the device (through some proprietary vendor commands to the mouse) or reconfigures Windows to remap these buttons. Interestingly the former case might already be supportable on Chrome OS, since it supports the WebUSB APIs. Since these USB commands would be non-standard and most likely undocumented by the hardware vendor, it would be up to Evoluent to provide such a frontend to configure the device. The latter case (configuring a remapping) would be similar to that API that is under discussion. It doesn't go as fast as the blog post's author wants, okay. But screaming into the void (or even here) doesn't help with advancing that process.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
The developer comments are so... modern? I don't know. Normally I'd call it "Open Source Dev" mentality, but sadly it has infected non-OSS devs too who don't even have the excuse of working for free. Remapping buttons should be trivial. Changing the colors of the UI should be trivial. Accessibility should be trivial! It is 2019 FFS. Why have we allowed software to regress so much as an industry? What is wrong with us?
- michael126 8y ago
  It happens naturally when an industry moves from being compromised of above-average intelligence and focus to a more mainstream industry. Over time, the workforce just approaches the average IQ of the population, because there is only a limited number of highly intelligent people and the latter already have been moving away into other more future-oriented territories - Blockchain and AI for example.
- hopler 8y ago
  This is particularly strong with the Chrome team and other parts of Google. In order to protect that $2M revenue/employee, they only build things for the generic mainstream or high paying advertisers. See also YouTube's video recommendations. If you want a computer, get a computer. If you want a cheap Google ad-viewing portal, get a Chromebook.
  - penagwin 8y ago
    This comment spreads misinformation IMO. My first laptop was a chromebook and it treated me well for years, albiet with chrubuntu. Standard ChromeOS shows 0 additional ads compared to standard Chrome on Windows 10 or even Firefox on Windows 10 without an ad blocker. In fact both Ubuntu and Windows 10 do, or have shown ads outside of the browser, so IMO they have _more_ ads then chrome os does. Nothing stops you from putting an ad blocker on Chrome OS too. That said chrome os isn't for everyone, but I would not call it a "Google ad-viewing portal" what so ever. That suggests it's like the kindle fires with their ads which isn't the case.
- fredley 8y ago
TheLoneAdmin 8y ago
Just open up your mouse and rewire the buttons.
ben11kehoe 8y ago
It's even worse when comparing Google's attitude with, for example, Microsoft releasing a dedicated, extensible accessible controller for Xbox https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/accessibility https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/accessibility
jdietrich 8y ago
The absence of a desired feature is not a bug. The author's situation is clearly very frustrating, but Chrome OS is intentionally minimalistic. Just one feature isn't going to result in bloat, but there are thousands of users who want just one feature. If he had bought an iPad Pro instead of a Chromebook, he would have been disappointed to learn that iOS doesn't support mice at all. A version of Chrome OS that supports every possible use-case and customisation is just linux. We already have linux. The issue tracker discussion seems reasonable to me. The UI team don't want to add and support the code necessary to facilitate the multitude of requests for remapping and shortcuts, so would prefer a suitable API for extensions. The kernel team have serious security concerns about such an API, because it would effectively permit keyloggers on the Chrome OS platform. On a practical level, I'd advise OP to install Crouton.
- groxr 8y ago
  Deliberately ignoring a simple accessibility feature request is unethical, a serious lapse in compliance to technical standards on accessibility, and possibly in violation of recently passed European legislation on the matter.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- dalbasal 8y ago
  I agree Broadly speaking, you can go with a minimalist system or a powerful one. It's easier easier to make minimalist simple & intuitive with great defaults. The other option is powerful, where the system can do lots of things. Linux is powerful. Lots of exceptions, but the rule is trade-off. Accessibility is, almost by definition, suitability for rare-ish use cases. Rarity varies. Some people need a thumb mouse. Some need color schemes. Some need to operate a machine using only their eyes. Accessibility is, also almost by definition, achieved by adding optional features... A choice further along the "powerful & complex" end of the spectrum will tend to work better for a diverse accessibility goalset. "Simple yet powerful" is a design goal specifically because it is paradoxical.... like "light yet strong" or "affordable luxury." It means you made your trade-offs and have come out ahead.
- 8y ago
nzb 8y ago
>The message being put out is that Google doesn't want unhealthy people using its products. When I read a criticism this petty I had to double check to see if it was a woman who had written the post.
- why_only_15 8y ago
  Seriously? Why the casual misogyny and sexism?
  - dang 8y ago
    Please don't respond to egregious comments by replying (a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls). Instead, flag the comment by clicking on its timestamp to go to its page, then click 'flag' at the top. (There's a small karma threshold before flag links appear.) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
tyingq 8y ago
Two ideas: a) Get a mouse with internal memory, like the Logitech G700. Program on Windows, then use with the Chromebook. Not sure if there's a "vertical mouse" equivalent. b) Crouton (or other Linux on CB solution) + xinput You shouldn't have to do either, but perhaps it's better than nothing.
snazz 8y ago
If you put your Chromebook in Developer Mode, you should be able to access a root Linux shell and remap buttons there. However, I don’t think Chrome OS uses Xorg at all so your xinput solution won’t work to remap mouse buttons. The only solution that’s effectively guaranteed to work is to install Crouton and run a Linux distro of your choice on it. You would still have to deal with the annoying boot sequence and slightly less security.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
preommr 8y ago
> That's when I discovered that accessibility is very much a second thought for all the young and healthy people Google employ. > No. The message being put out is that Google doesn't want unhealthy people using its products. This upsets me because I know a lot of devs do care about accessibility. Hell, it's not even about developers, any decent human would want to help out someone when they can. To just say that google employees don't care because they're "young and healthy" is unwarranted and frankly quite rude.
- edent 8y ago
  But it is a constant pattern with Google. See https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2014/12/do-all-google-employees-have-perfect-eyesight/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2014/12/do-all-google-employees-hav... and https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2015/11/googles-yellow-is-too-mellow/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2015/11/googles-yellow-is-too-mello... for two examples. I'm sure you can find more. And, yes, I am being rude. I am in pain and it sucks. I've tried being polite for five years and the bug hasn't got any significant attention. Now it has.
  - Klathmon 8y ago
    Come on, your second example is silly at best. You are seriously saying that the middle O in their Google logo has bad contrast, and therefore they don't care about accessibility? And your first example doesn't even mention that there is a specially designed high-contrast mode for android which fixes the readability issues for those who need it, and Chrome has a text scaling option which can increase the font size and will actually wrap in the way you want, and android itself has a "large text mode" which will achieve much of the same. Google isn't perfect, but those examples aren't exactly doing you any favors trying to show the issues.
  - srj 8y ago
    I work at Google and have colleagues with accessibility needs, so the idea that nobody there does is false. Many of the comments in the bug you linked in the original blog post are just about people with extra buttons they want to use. It doesn't seem like an accessibility motive for fixing it was figured out until just this past November.
BacioiuC 8y ago
Isn't this a problem for the device manufacturer to write a driver that supports ChromeOS? Or a hardware toggle for the buttons to switch them? That's like me writing an operating system right now, from zero and OP downloads it and feels left-out that I do not have support for re-assigning mouse buttons. What if I wrote an OS specifically for power users with no disability because I'm targeting that exact group? Or an OS that only works with gamepads (I am exaggerating here). Should I feel bad because people who can't use gamepads want to use it even tough it is not made for them specifically? To me, a person with no disabilities and that does not know what you're going through, it feels like this: I'm way to tall to fit in a Disney World ride and instead of going for another ride I could fit in I complain that they discriminate against me and demand they make changes specifically for my tallness. Or due to my physical condition (way to tall and a bit overweight) I can't make it as an astronaut for Nasa's next mission since I don't fit in the capsule and I demand they compensate for my extra kg's and need of space inside the capsule instead of choosing someone that fits their current capsule. I'm not being ignorant of your problem I'm just trying to understand how the dev team behind ChromeOS is responsible for all the edge-cases out there. I'd see it as a problem if they were designing an OS specifically for people with disabilities.
- penagwin 8y ago
  While it could be a driver/hardware solution, I know that windows supports it, (I'm sure linux too), so it could be an OS solution, and my guess is that it wouldn't be too much work (tm) to add it. However, as other have said, adding just one feature isn't too bad, but 1000 people wanting just one feature becomes unmanageable, and ChromeOS is intentionally slim. There are mice with built in profiles such as the Razer and Logitech series that can switch the mice buttons (and have a button to toggle the profile). They aren't crazy expensive either, the logitech one is ~30$ IIRC.
owaislone 8y ago
So disappointed with all the comments defending Chrome OS because it aims for a minimalist design and doesn't add feature bloat. You can't really count accessibility and other features as the same thing.
avar 8y ago
The sentiment expressed in many comments here are why it's only a matter of time before regulators are going to come down hard on the software industry with some ADA-esque law, and they'll probably be right to do so. Making a physical device accessible to everyone gets into zero-sum design decisions, whereas Google's going to have a hard time arguing that a feature X11 has had for decades is something beyond its resources to implement.
- SilasX 8y ago
  >Google's going to have a hard time arguing that a feature X11 has had for decades is something beyond its resources to implement. I don't know, Mozilla had an easy time justifying how they broke the key remapping API with no replacement [1], even though Super Metroid (1992), on the SNES, allowed you to do that. SMH. [1] Extensions can remap keys ... after a tab's page has loaded. Which means that if you have move-tab-left/right remapped, you can't sail through the tabs because they'll randomly stop to wait for the page to reload.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

96 points by edent 8y ago

So just because this specific person has an issue that doesn't allow them to use a Chromebook they should make a blanket statement that they are inaccessible? I'm totally blind and have had a Chromebook for several years. I got it as a gift because I was interested in its accessibility. I've seen Google make large strides in accessibility in the couple years I've owned it. It went from barely usable to something I am comfortable using as my only computer if I don't need to do any programming. Just because something may not be fully accessible to someone does not mean we should ignore all the work companies have done to move accessibility from nonexistent to decent.

edent 8y ago
I'm extremely glad that Chromebooks are accessible to you. But they are not accessible to me. In a similar way to saying a subtitled movie isn't acessible. Sure, it meets the needs of the Deaf community - but not people with low/no vision. Google have done some great things in accessibility - and I regularly work with them. But this specific issue has remained unresolved for too long now.
- jareds 8y ago
  Have you contacted Google accessibility directly about this instead of writing an angry blog post and hoping it gets enough traction that someone who works at google notices? https://support.google.com/accessibility/answer/7641084?visit_id=636821183286557811-2874298814&rd=1#disability-support https://support.google.com/accessibility/answer/7641084?visi...
  - edent 8y ago
    I've contacted them in public and in private. Over five years. Nothing has helped.
  - opencl 8y ago
    Clearly several people working at Google have already noticed because they replied to the report on the issue tracker about it, and they all said that implementing this would be a good idea.
    - magicalist 8y ago
      > Clearly several people working at Google have already noticed because they replied to the report on the issue tracker about it Those were from before this blog post (most recent was December). Sounds like the problem is prioritization, not convincing them it's a good idea.
  - gnu8 8y ago
    As far as I know, angry blogging is the only way to contact google directly.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > In a similar way to saying a subtitled movie isn't acessible. Sure, it meets the needs of the Deaf community - but not people with low/no vision. Is accessibility generally treated in such a binary sense? If something isn't accessible to everyone, it isn't accessible? (Genuine question. Either answer would be valid. I'd prefer to know how it's used in common parlance.)
  - pgeorgi 8y ago
    > Is accessibility generally treated in such a binary sense? It's not, otherwise closed captioned videos wouldn't be released without audio description tracks (and vice versa).
  - edent 8y ago
    The basis of solidarity is "an injury to one of us is an injury to all of us." If you look at, for example, the WCAG rules on accessibility, you'll see that there are various levels of conformance. Accessibility isn't just about blind people, or deaf people, or people with tremors, or people with cognative impairments. It is about all of us. You and me. One day, you will be old. Your eyes won't be as good as they were and your joints will be stiff. Then someone will tell you that Windows 2038 is accessible because it is voice controlled. That's nice for you, but not much help for someone who has lost their voice. Sorry, I'm rambling. Accessibility means including everyone.
    - luiscleto 8y ago
      That sounds incredibly utopic. Anyone at any time can have a completely new disability which renders any product unusable to them. It is not reasonable to expect companies to have a moral obligation to accommodate every single human being on the planet. Nor would it be economically viable for many products. (disclaimer: that this does not mean I think an effort should not even be made. But there will always be outliers as that is the painful reality we live in. I do think OP is justified in their complaint and wanting more accessibility. But I don't think it is their "right" to expect that demand to be met)
      - 8y ago
kuhhk 8y ago
Hello jareds. I'm curious what you use for programming, since you mentioned you don't use your Chromebook for that.
- jareds 8y ago
  I use Windows 10 machines and make heavy use of WSL. I use Eclipse as my IDE when doing Java work. I use Jaws for Windows as my primary screen reading software and NVDA occasionally for things it handles better then Jaws. I used to own a Mac but booted it into Windows most of the time once WSL became a thing. In my limited experience the Mac is OK for general computing from an accessibility perspective but does not offer the screen reader customizability and efficiency that Windows does. https://www.freedomscientific.com/Products/Blindness/JAWS https://www.freedomscientific.com/Products/Blindness/JAWS https://www.nvaccess.org/ https://www.nvaccess.org/
groxr 8y ago
No, it would not be considered accessible as defined in ISO 9241-171 Ergonomics of human-system interaction - Guidance on software accessibility, and further it may be in conflict with the recently passed European Accessibility Act.

Havoc 8y ago

>Google doesn't want unhealthy people using its products. Seriously? It's just a product that is intentionally stripped down & doesn't cover all edge cases.

edent 8y ago
Nice to be called an "edge case". Really makes me feel valued as an individual. There are thousands of unhealthy people who are being deliberately excluded from Google's cheap computing revolution. How many of us do there need to be before we're not an edge case?
- johnnyfaehell 8y ago
  > There are thousands of unhealthy people who are being deliberately excluded from Google's cheap computing revolution. Remove the word deliberately and you've got the truth. It's not like they sat around the boardroom and said: "You know what, let's make our computers only usable by healthy folk". It just happened, Google has a ton of people who didn't think about this aspect. It wasn't something they planned or even thought about.
  - moftz 8y ago
    You can read all of the comments by the devs who aren't even considering the accessibility option. Remapping mouse buttons come across to them as someone trying to map keyboard shortcuts to the mouse buttons for better productivity in whatever apps they use for work.
    - pgeorgi 8y ago
      > Remapping mouse buttons come across to them as someone trying to map keyboard shortcuts to the mouse buttons for better productivity in whatever apps they use for work. That's because key mapping and button mapping is more or less the same problem, as far as computers are concerned. From the blog: "Evoluent - the manufacturer of my mouse - also provide a handy tool for Windows and Mac so that I can set the mouse buttons up just the way I like them". There's a technical reason for that (actually, two): USB HID allows devices to expose how many buttons they have, plus some characteristics, but it's utterly useless to expose the information that "button 17 is the one in the top right corner when seen from above". The other reason is that USB device vendors (no matter which device type) don't feel the need to implement standards faithfully, so devices need special handling in drivers all the time. So Evoluent provides its own Windows and Mac tool. In the bug linked in the post, the devs are discussing adding such special cases, or - instead, and preferred - providing an API through which third parties (no matter if Evoluent or that chap who can write xinput configs) could develop frontends that could do such configuration. Now, these APIs shouldn't enable third parties to essentially log everything entered by the user. And that's where the discussion is at. I'm not sure if the Evoluent tool reconfigures the device (through some proprietary vendor commands to the mouse) or reconfigures Windows to remap these buttons. Interestingly the former case might already be supportable on Chrome OS, since it supports the WebUSB APIs. Since these USB commands would be non-standard and most likely undocumented by the hardware vendor, it would be up to Evoluent to provide such a frontend to configure the device. The latter case (configuring a remapping) would be similar to that API that is under discussion. It doesn't go as fast as the blog post's author wants, okay. But screaming into the void (or even here) doesn't help with advancing that process.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago

The developer comments are so... modern? I don't know. Normally I'd call it "Open Source Dev" mentality, but sadly it has infected non-OSS devs too who don't even have the excuse of working for free. Remapping buttons should be trivial. Changing the colors of the UI should be trivial. Accessibility should be trivial! It is 2019 FFS. Why have we allowed software to regress so much as an industry? What is wrong with us?

michael126 8y ago
It happens naturally when an industry moves from being compromised of above-average intelligence and focus to a more mainstream industry. Over time, the workforce just approaches the average IQ of the population, because there is only a limited number of highly intelligent people and the latter already have been moving away into other more future-oriented territories - Blockchain and AI for example.
hopler 8y ago
This is particularly strong with the Chrome team and other parts of Google. In order to protect that $2M revenue/employee, they only build things for the generic mainstream or high paying advertisers. See also YouTube's video recommendations. If you want a computer, get a computer. If you want a cheap Google ad-viewing portal, get a Chromebook.
- penagwin 8y ago
  This comment spreads misinformation IMO. My first laptop was a chromebook and it treated me well for years, albiet with chrubuntu. Standard ChromeOS shows 0 additional ads compared to standard Chrome on Windows 10 or even Firefox on Windows 10 without an ad blocker. In fact both Ubuntu and Windows 10 do, or have shown ads outside of the browser, so IMO they have _more_ ads then chrome os does. Nothing stops you from putting an ad blocker on Chrome OS too. That said chrome os isn't for everyone, but I would not call it a "Google ad-viewing portal" what so ever. That suggests it's like the kindle fires with their ads which isn't the case.
fredley 8y ago

TheLoneAdmin 8y ago

Just open up your mouse and rewire the buttons.

ben11kehoe 8y ago

It's even worse when comparing Google's attitude with, for example, Microsoft releasing a dedicated, extensible accessible controller for Xbox https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/accessibility https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/accessibility

jdietrich 8y ago

The absence of a desired feature is not a bug. The author's situation is clearly very frustrating, but Chrome OS is intentionally minimalistic. Just one feature isn't going to result in bloat, but there are thousands of users who want just one feature. If he had bought an iPad Pro instead of a Chromebook, he would have been disappointed to learn that iOS doesn't support mice at all. A version of Chrome OS that supports every possible use-case and customisation is just linux. We already have linux. The issue tracker discussion seems reasonable to me. The UI team don't want to add and support the code necessary to facilitate the multitude of requests for remapping and shortcuts, so would prefer a suitable API for extensions. The kernel team have serious security concerns about such an API, because it would effectively permit keyloggers on the Chrome OS platform. On a practical level, I'd advise OP to install Crouton.

groxr 8y ago
Deliberately ignoring a simple accessibility feature request is unethical, a serious lapse in compliance to technical standards on accessibility, and possibly in violation of recently passed European legislation on the matter.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
dalbasal 8y ago
I agree Broadly speaking, you can go with a minimalist system or a powerful one. It's easier easier to make minimalist simple & intuitive with great defaults. The other option is powerful, where the system can do lots of things. Linux is powerful. Lots of exceptions, but the rule is trade-off. Accessibility is, almost by definition, suitability for rare-ish use cases. Rarity varies. Some people need a thumb mouse. Some need color schemes. Some need to operate a machine using only their eyes. Accessibility is, also almost by definition, achieved by adding optional features... A choice further along the "powerful & complex" end of the spectrum will tend to work better for a diverse accessibility goalset. "Simple yet powerful" is a design goal specifically because it is paradoxical.... like "light yet strong" or "affordable luxury." It means you made your trade-offs and have come out ahead.
8y ago

nzb 8y ago

>The message being put out is that Google doesn't want unhealthy people using its products. When I read a criticism this petty I had to double check to see if it was a woman who had written the post.

why_only_15 8y ago
Seriously? Why the casual misogyny and sexism?
- dang 8y ago
  Please don't respond to egregious comments by replying (a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls). Instead, flag the comment by clicking on its timestamp to go to its page, then click 'flag' at the top. (There's a small karma threshold before flag links appear.) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

tyingq 8y ago

Two ideas: a) Get a mouse with internal memory, like the Logitech G700. Program on Windows, then use with the Chromebook. Not sure if there's a "vertical mouse" equivalent. b) Crouton (or other Linux on CB solution) + xinput You shouldn't have to do either, but perhaps it's better than nothing.

snazz 8y ago

If you put your Chromebook in Developer Mode, you should be able to access a root Linux shell and remap buttons there. However, I don’t think Chrome OS uses Xorg at all so your xinput solution won’t work to remap mouse buttons. The only solution that’s effectively guaranteed to work is to install Crouton and run a Linux distro of your choice on it. You would still have to deal with the annoying boot sequence and slightly less security.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

preommr 8y ago

> That's when I discovered that accessibility is very much a second thought for all the young and healthy people Google employ. > No. The message being put out is that Google doesn't want unhealthy people using its products. This upsets me because I know a lot of devs do care about accessibility. Hell, it's not even about developers, any decent human would want to help out someone when they can. To just say that google employees don't care because they're "young and healthy" is unwarranted and frankly quite rude.

edent 8y ago
But it is a constant pattern with Google. See https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2014/12/do-all-google-employees-have-perfect-eyesight/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2014/12/do-all-google-employees-hav... and https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2015/11/googles-yellow-is-too-mellow/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2015/11/googles-yellow-is-too-mello... for two examples. I'm sure you can find more. And, yes, I am being rude. I am in pain and it sucks. I've tried being polite for five years and the bug hasn't got any significant attention. Now it has.
- Klathmon 8y ago
  Come on, your second example is silly at best. You are seriously saying that the middle O in their Google logo has bad contrast, and therefore they don't care about accessibility? And your first example doesn't even mention that there is a specially designed high-contrast mode for android which fixes the readability issues for those who need it, and Chrome has a text scaling option which can increase the font size and will actually wrap in the way you want, and android itself has a "large text mode" which will achieve much of the same. Google isn't perfect, but those examples aren't exactly doing you any favors trying to show the issues.
- srj 8y ago
  I work at Google and have colleagues with accessibility needs, so the idea that nobody there does is false. Many of the comments in the bug you linked in the original blog post are just about people with extra buttons they want to use. It doesn't seem like an accessibility motive for fixing it was figured out until just this past November.

BacioiuC 8y ago

Isn't this a problem for the device manufacturer to write a driver that supports ChromeOS? Or a hardware toggle for the buttons to switch them? That's like me writing an operating system right now, from zero and OP downloads it and feels left-out that I do not have support for re-assigning mouse buttons. What if I wrote an OS specifically for power users with no disability because I'm targeting that exact group? Or an OS that only works with gamepads (I am exaggerating here). Should I feel bad because people who can't use gamepads want to use it even tough it is not made for them specifically? To me, a person with no disabilities and that does not know what you're going through, it feels like this: I'm way to tall to fit in a Disney World ride and instead of going for another ride I could fit in I complain that they discriminate against me and demand they make changes specifically for my tallness. Or due to my physical condition (way to tall and a bit overweight) I can't make it as an astronaut for Nasa's next mission since I don't fit in the capsule and I demand they compensate for my extra kg's and need of space inside the capsule instead of choosing someone that fits their current capsule. I'm not being ignorant of your problem I'm just trying to understand how the dev team behind ChromeOS is responsible for all the edge-cases out there. I'd see it as a problem if they were designing an OS specifically for people with disabilities.

penagwin 8y ago
While it could be a driver/hardware solution, I know that windows supports it, (I'm sure linux too), so it could be an OS solution, and my guess is that it wouldn't be too much work (tm) to add it. However, as other have said, adding just one feature isn't too bad, but 1000 people wanting just one feature becomes unmanageable, and ChromeOS is intentionally slim. There are mice with built in profiles such as the Razer and Logitech series that can switch the mice buttons (and have a button to toggle the profile). They aren't crazy expensive either, the logitech one is ~30$ IIRC.

owaislone 8y ago

So disappointed with all the comments defending Chrome OS because it aims for a minimalist design and doesn't add feature bloat. You can't really count accessibility and other features as the same thing.

avar 8y ago

The sentiment expressed in many comments here are why it's only a matter of time before regulators are going to come down hard on the software industry with some ADA-esque law, and they'll probably be right to do so. Making a physical device accessible to everyone gets into zero-sum design decisions, whereas Google's going to have a hard time arguing that a feature X11 has had for decades is something beyond its resources to implement.

SilasX 8y ago
>Google's going to have a hard time arguing that a feature X11 has had for decades is something beyond its resources to implement. I don't know, Mozilla had an easy time justifying how they broke the key remapping API with no replacement [1], even though Super Metroid (1992), on the SNES, allowed you to do that. SMH. [1] Extensions can remap keys ... after a tab's page has loaded. Which means that if you have move-tab-left/right remapped, you can't sail through the tabs because they'll randomly stop to wait for the page to reload.

deleted 8y ago

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