GSOC '21 - Expanding p5.js accessibility features Review of Proposal

Hello everyone, I am Rishabh Taparia. I am planning on submitting a proposal on expanding the p5.js accessibility features project. A lot of amazing work on this has been done on this by Luis Morales last summer and I plan to extend the project by adding a few additional features. I have also submitted my draft proposal on the GSOC website.

Link for the draft proposal:
[p5.js Expanding Accessibility.docx - Google Drive]

Tagging @saberkhan @AdityaRana @lmccart @limzykenneth @micuat for review.

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(disclaimer: I’m thinking about applying as a student but I hope I make fair comments)

The overlap detection seems interesting but not sure how blind/visually-impaired users benefit. Definitely it adds extra information, but does it worth implementing, and can you generalize it to circle-triangle, begin/endShape etc?

I know they describe SVG export in the list, but I want to know how this can be used by the users. Maybe pass it to a plotter to make some kind of haptic/textural output? Also I know plotter users already struggle with exporting SVG from p5.js so maybe you can learn from them how to do it.

You mentioned internationalization briefly but this is a big topic and can be highlighted too, I think.

Thank you for your suggestions!
The overlapping feature will help the visually impaired users have a better understanding of how the different shapes are aligned in the canvas sketch. Most of the art pieces have overlapping of variety of shapes and letting the users know about them will help them understand the art piece better, which is I think one of the main objectives of accessibility features. The generalization of this feature can be implemented by extending the Separation Axis theorem which I have mentioned.

I will definitely do some research regarding the Plotter users for the SVG export function. As of now, I have added a general way of exporting the canvas scene for all the users. I will try to expand the usage of this function though.

That still sounds like you’re saying it is useful because you think it is useful. My point is that it can be risky to assume that your idea is useful for someone while I’m not judging that this feature is useful or not. Because it seems your proposal is centered around the overlap detection, if the reviewers think that is not a “useful” feature, they can simply turn down the application.