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Wenn Sie eine Anwendung für Ingenieure, Kinder oder Systemverwalter entwerfen, stellen Sie bitte sicher, dass diese Anwendung von allen Ingenieuren, Kindern oder Systemverwaltern benutzt werden kann, einschließlich denjenigen mit Behinderungen oder denen, die Ihre eigene Sprache nicht sprechen. Denken Sie an die Integration von Hilfstechnologien und die Internationalisierung. Vieles davon wird in den vorliegenden Richtlinien näher erläutert.

1.2.1. Barrierefreiheit

Accessibility (sometimes called a11y) means enabling people with disabilities of some kind to participate in life's activities: in this case, specifically to use your software. For example:

  • Color-blind users may not be able to use your application if you rely only on color-coding to distinguish different types of information
  • Schwerhörige oder gehörlose Benutzer werden Ihre Anwendung nicht benutzen können, wenn Sie Klänge ausgeben lassen, um kritische Informationen anzuzeigen
  • Users with limited movement may not be able to use your application if you don't provide keyboard equivalents for commands

Your software should also be usable with voice interfaces, screen readers such as Gnopernicus, alternate input devices, and other assistive technologies. The standard GNOME libraries do most of this work for you, but with a little extra effort you can make your application every bit as useful to users who rely on those technologies as to those who don't.

GNOME has excellent inbuilt support for accessibility by means of the ATK and GAIL libraries, which in many cases can do most of the work for you. More information on accessibility in GNOME can be found at the GNOME Accessibility Project.

1.2.2. Internationalisierung und Lokalisierung

Internationalization means designing software so that it can function in different language environments. Localization is the process of actually translating the messages, labels, and other interface elements of an application into another language.

GNOME has excellent support for both internationalization (also referred to as i18n) and localization (also referred to as l10n). In most cases, simply using standard GNOME APIs for displaying text and messages will allow you or others to localize your application for other locales. For more information on how to make your application localizable, see the Pango project home page (Pango is the GNOME library for rendering internationalized text), the GNOME Translations page, and the GNOME Translation Project page.

Sensitivity to cultural and political issues is also an important consideration. Designing icons and sounds, and even choosing colors requires some understanding of the connotations they might have to a user from a different part of the world.

Beispiele für Elemente, die aus diesen Gründen gemieden werden sollten:

  • Abbildungen von Flaggen und Währungen
  • Maps showing political boundaries or contentious location names
  • Liste von Ländern oder Städten in nicht-alphabetischer Sortierung, es sei denn, dies ist speziell gefordert oder im Kontext unumgänglich
  • Symbole, die Tiere darstellen
  • Symbole, die nur Hände oder Füße darstellen