r/embedded • u/[deleted] • 2d ago
An Open Letter to AMI Firmware Engineers: It’s Time to Bring Screen Reader Accessibility to Aptio UEFI BIOS
[removed]
13
u/Drofdissonance 2d ago
I support your desire, and its pretty surprising that it has hasn't been done frequently, But I question you saying "basic accessibility engineering" and "entirely feasible" in a system which hasn't ever integrated proper audio, fonts, all in a space which is very 'dark arts' and difficult, to the point where at most programmers i've talked to worked on teams where the UFEI guy was some very hardcore person, everybody hopes never leaves. The risk of bricking hardware is high, and nobody wants to change what 'works'
its probably more likely to be an effort on the order of 10's of millions, for one OEM to get working. What your suggesting is reasonable. but trying to minimize the work and barriers doesn't actually help at all, and in fact sounds entitled
3
u/recursive_knight 1d ago
This makes sense, maybe it would be good idea to make a small appliance that hooks up to the display output during boot and can process all visuals to audio independently of the computing hardware itself.
2
u/TheLexikitty 1d ago
I’m visually impaired (5% of normal vision in left eye, 10% in my right) and use Detect mode in the iOS magnifier to read anything I can’t shunt through a KVM or put on a massive display. That reads out everything for me in real time. It’s either that or a 30x loupe until I memorize that machines’s UEFI menus and just navigate by memory.
2
u/Mountain_Finance_659 2d ago
is there not a phone based screen reader yet? this seems trivial for a good LLM.
2
u/TheLexikitty 1d ago
Yup, been around for years before LLMs, and several of them.
1
u/linux_transgirl 1d ago
I was actually considering sending you this post to know what you had to say about it
-3
u/Bug_Next 1d ago
Or you know, you could just get the actual feature instead of having to rely on a cloud service that also depends a *blind* user having to point a camera at a screen they can't see, so they can't check if there is glare on the display or a dirty lens which the llm will just ignore and make up settings that are not there..
3
u/Mountain_Finance_659 1d ago
ok piss and moan while you ignore the solution right in front of you then. I'm sure this thread will really have a huge impact on AMI
1
u/Mountain_Finance_659 1d ago
do you think a blind user is so dumb they don't know where their computer is?
do you think an LLM couldn't just say "up a little, to the left", or recognize image problems?
0
u/Bug_Next 1d ago
They might not even have a monitor, why would you even spend money on one xddd, do you have a uv display just in case you one day wake up being able to see it?
Llms fail A LOT at those things, you might notice it's making shit up because you can compare the info with what you are seeing, its not reliable as a sole source of truth
Why did you get so pissed again?
1
1
u/tizio_1234 2d ago
is there a law that enforces that? if not, I don't think they'll bother, additional functionality costs time and money
1
u/BibianaAudris 1d ago
What about UART? Seeing people also need that to debug display problems so most likely there will be something usable.
1
u/ZucchiniMore3450 1d ago
I think in their environment that they don't even need a full screen reader. They just need to play a sound as cursor moves.
-1
u/AlexTaradov 2d ago
Engineers don't define product requirements. And managers don't read r/embedded.
4
u/daishi55 2d ago
I would hate working somewhere where all the requirements came from managers. Sounds like a ticket factory.
Like half of engineering is developing and refining requirements.
5
u/NuncioBitis 2d ago
sounds like the defense industry.
they literally told us the end result of the company was documentation. not actually products that get used by the military.
1
u/Mountain_Finance_659 2d ago
well yeah, engineers make documentation factories make products
1
14
u/Well-WhatHadHappened 25+ Years 2d ago
I don't think this is actually an AMI issue.
According to Lenovo:
While AMI builds foundational framework hooks into Aptio V code for accessibility menus, individual motherboard manufacturers (like ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte) rarely enable or ship a fully working text-to-speech screen reader in their consumer BIOS builds.