Resources

CAOS helps open-source communities learn about disability and accessibility so they can make their projects and communities more welcoming and usable. We also facilitate a global network connecting open-source and disability communities.

Below is a curated, growing list of resources to support that work.

Accessibility Standards and Guidelines

Accessibility Best Practices for Your Project — A guide for open-source maintainers from GitHub’s Open Source Guides, covering accessibility statements, accessible documentation, and building accessibility into issue templates, pull request checklists, and testing.
W3C Accessibility Standards Overview — The World Wide Web Consortium’s starting point for the international accessibility standards, including WCAG, ATAG, and WAI-ARIA.
WCAG2ICT: Applying WCAG to Non-Web Software and Documents — W3C guidance on applying WCAG to desktop apps, command-line tools, documents, and other non-web software, highly relevant to most open-source projects.
Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) — W3C guidelines for tools people use to create content, such as editors, content management systems, and site generators, covering both the tool’s own accessibility and the accessibility of what it produces.
Involving Users in Evaluating Accessibility — W3C guidance on including people with disabilities in testing, and why guidelines and automated checks alone are not enough.
Developing an Accessibility Statement — W3C guidance and a generator for writing an accessibility statement, a good basis for a project’s ACCESSIBILITY.md file.

Open-Source Assistive Technologies

NVDA — A free, open-source screen reader for Windows used by blind and low-vision people around the world, created and maintained by a global community of blind developers under the Australian nonprofit NV Access.
Liblouis — An open-source braille translator and back-translator supporting many languages and braille codes, used by NVDA and many other screen readers and braille tools; originally written by blind programmer John Boyer.
BrailleBlaster — Free, open-source braille transcription software from the American Printing House for the Blind, built on Liblouis.
LiveCaptions — A free, open-source app that provides live captions for any audio on the Linux desktop, processed entirely on the user’s own computer, filling a gap for Deaf and hard of hearing Linux users.
OptiKey — A free, open-source on-screen keyboard that gives people with motor and speech disabilities, such as ALS/MND, full computer control and speech using low-cost eye trackers, developed in close collaboration with its user community.
Cboard — A free, open-source augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) app for children and adults with speech and language disabilities, co-founded by an engineer living with ALS and supported by the UNICEF Innovation Fund.

Disability and Technology Communities

GOAT (Grassroots Open Assistive Tech) — A Bay Area community that documents, preserves, and freely shares assistive technology designs, and runs DIY repair and maintenance labs empowering disabled people to build, hack, and maintain the tools that keep them mobile and independent.
Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) — A research center at OCAD University in Toronto that co-designs open-source tools and resources with people who have lived experience of disability.

Learning and Training

Teach Access Curriculum Repository — More than 300 openly licensed teaching materials on accessibility and disability, including syllabi, assignments, slides, and case studies from faculty in computer science, design, engineering, and related fields.
Teach Access Tutorial — A free, hands-on introduction to accessibility for developers and designers, with code samples and exercises.
W3C Digital Accessibility Foundations — A free, self-paced online course from W3C introducing digital accessibility, the barriers people face, and the standards that address them.

Know a resource we should list? Let us know.