2026-09-11 –, Track Room 1
The presentation provides insights into findings from the project “Digital Accessibility in the Workspace through Participatory Evaluation” with a focus on developer perspectives, open-source communities and accessibility knowledge within the community. The project analyses show that digital accessibility is not only a technical issue, but also an organizational and communicative one. The findings offer ideas and inspiration for increasing awareness of and engagement with accessibility across the LibreOffice community. The goal is to discuss accessibility as a shared responsibility within the open-source community.
Digital accessibility in software is often treated primarily as a technical issue - focusing on semantic HTML, screen reader compatibility, or color contrast settings or the proper PDF/A Conversion. However, accessibility is not created by technology alone; it is equally shaped by development processes, communication, organizational structures, role perceptions and community culture. Recent EU regulations, including the European Accessibility Act (EAA), reinforce the importance of digital accessibility and highlight the need for open-source communities to address it collectively and more systematically.
This talk presents selected findings from the project “Digital Accessibility in the Workspace through Participatory Evaluation” with a particular focus on developer perspectives, open-source communities and accessibility knowledge within the community.
Based on interview analyses, surveys, and practical reports from open-source communities, the presentation explores how developers perceive accessibility in their daily work, which barriers exist within development processes, and how community structures can either support or hinder accessible software development. A key objective is to strengthen the participation of people with disabilities as experts within these processes.
The findings offer ideas and inspiration for increasing awareness of and engagement with accessibility across the LibreOffice community. So the session aims to bring these selected insights back into the community and encourage discussion about how accessibility can become a more natural and shared responsibility across the broader open-source and software development ecosystem.
Ramona has been working for over 10 years in the field of social and digital inclusion within the context of higher education. In her current project, 'Digital Accessibility in Working Life through Participatory Evaluation', she collaborates with software developers to make open source software accessible in the long term. As part of this, she designs further trainings and continuing education programs for and with developers to ensure that accessibility requirements are considered from the very beginning of the software development process and thus implemented sustainably.
In her private life, she is active in NGOs focused on education, data privacy, and FOSS within the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) environment, and is also in regular exchange with various open source communities.