A Few All-stars

When I was in Boston last week, I spent time meeting with some members of the Mozilla accessibility community. Ken Saunders and Aaron Leventhal are both working tirelessly on web accessibility issues for those with disabilities, and both are helping to promote Firefox as a great solution for many who want to access the internet.

I pointed everyone to Access Firefox in the past. Ken created this site to showcase all the tools available to Firefox users with disabilities. He’s worked with many people along the way, including Aaron. We have started to brainstorm on how Ken envisions expanding this site. Presently, it is an entry point to Firefox and a straight-forward presentation of information for those who face accessibility challenges. For example, check out these three extensions developed by Mozilla community members that are featured on Ken’s site:

• CLiCk Speak — Developed by Charles Chen
• Mouse Gestures — From the Optimoz Project
• Page Zoom — Developed by Kenji Inoue

Great extensions for those who want and need better web accessibility! More are listed on the site, so please take some time to poke around.

Having spoken with him on several occasions, Ken is enthused to make Access Firefox even bigger. He’s enlisted the support of a young Australian developer to address some of the coding issues. With limited resources, he’s already made a big impact. Perhaps one day, Access Firefox will do for the accessibility community what Spread Firefox did for our first users.

Special thanks to Ken and Aaron and all the extension developers listed above and on Access Firefox for embodying the ideals of our community — empowerment, creativity, leverage, respect for others, dedication, socially conscious…the list goes on.

Tags: community, evangelists | Categories: Uncategorized