NexTool Solutions

In GLPI, someone who cannot tell colors apart cannot tell whether a ticket is New or In progress. The status icon changes only its color, priorities are similar shades of pink and red, and the focus outline nearly disappears for keyboard users. Accessibility, a free NexTool module, adds a panel where each person turns on what they need, in GLPI and in the requester portal.

Barriers GLPI creates without anyone noticing

GLPI is used all day by technicians and, through the portal, by requesters from every department. Some interface choices work for most people and get in the way of everyone else:

• Status by color only. New and In progress use the same green, and Solved and Closed the same black. To a color-blind person, the whole queue seems to have two statuses.
• Priorities in neighboring shades. The default colors go from pink to red. People with protanopia or deuteranopia cannot tell which ticket is more urgent by looking at the list.
• Cramped text. Lines, letters and words packed together tire people with dyslexia or low vision, and GLPI has many dense screens.
• A faint focus. People who use the Tab key need to know where they are. The default outline is thin and light, and it vanishes on several backgrounds.
• Motion on screen. Transitions and animations bother people who are sensitive to movement.
• Portuguese as a second language. For many deaf people in Brazil, the first language is Libras (Brazilian Sign Language), and a long ticket text is harder to follow.

None of these is a bug: they are defaults nobody reviewed with people who read differently in mind. That is why the module treats each one as a personal option, not as a change for everyone.

How Accessibility works

The module adds an accessibility icon to the header, next to the user menu, on every page of the standard interface and of the portal. It opens a panel with the features the administrator made available. The same choice is also in the Accessibility tab of My settings. Each feature saves on click and changes the screen right away, and the preference is stored in GLPI, so it follows the person on any computer.

• Ticket statuses with their own shape: New becomes a star, In progress a person, Pending a pause, Solved a check mark and Closed a padlock. The status is recognized by its drawing, without relying on color.
• Color-blind safe priority colors: replaces the user's own priority colors with a scale read by lightness (details below).
• Wider text spacing: more space between lines, letters and words across GLPI, following WCAG success criterion 1.4.12.
• High-legibility font: Atkinson Hyperlegible, created by the Braille Institute for people with low vision, with letters that are not mistaken for one another. It is bundled with the module, with no external service.
• Stronger keyboard focus: a yellow outline with a black border, visible on any background. On GLPI 10, the module also adds a “Skip to content” shortcut.
• Reduced motion: turns off transitions, blinking and animations. People who already asked their operating system for less motion get it automatically, without turning anything on.
• Libras with VLibras: an avatar translates the text the person selects into Libras. It stays off until the administrator turns it on.

Each feature has a guide with the before and after, opened from the “?” of each option or from the “How each feature works” button. The guide shows a live example, including how a color-blind person sees statuses and priorities, and says who the feature helps. That makes life easier for whoever promotes the module internally: you can show the effect before asking anyone to turn it on.

Priority colors that work under any color blindness

The usual way to “fix” colors for color-blind people is to pick a palette for one type of color blindness. The problem is that there are different types: protanopia and deuteranopia affect red and green, and tritanopia affects blue and yellow. A palette that is good for one can be bad for another.

Accessibility takes another approach: the scale goes from light yellow to almost black, and each priority is darker than the previous one. The order is read by lightness, which every type of color blindness perceives, not by hue. The scale is “inferno”, designed to stay ordered even in grayscale.

The change is written to the user's own priority colors, the same ones GLPI already lets people adjust in My settings. Before changing them, the module keeps the previous colors, and they come back when the person turns the feature off. The change applies when the page is reloaded and does not alter anyone else's screen.

Libras with VLibras, and what goes outside

VLibras is a set of free, open-source tools from the Brazilian federal government that translates Portuguese content into Libras. With the feature on, a button with a hands symbol appears on the side of the screen: the person clicks it, selects a text and a 3D avatar translates it. Nobody needs to install anything.

Because it is an external service, it comes turned off, and the module's Integrations tab explains to the administrator what happens before it is turned on:

• The browser downloads the widget from vlibras.gov.br and cdn.jsdelivr.net, which log the visitor's IP.
• The text selected for translation goes to the federal government's translation server. It may be ticket content, with personal data.
• Nothing is sent until the user clicks the VLibras button.

The same tab tests, in the administrator's browser, whether the VLibras addresses are allowed. The test runs in the browser because that is the path VLibras takes: on an internal network with restricted outbound access, the GLPI server may reach the internet while the user's computer cannot. Each user can also hide the button just for themselves.

Who decides what

The panel does not depend on profile permissions. Every user sees it and turns on what they need, without opening a ticket for the administrator. The administrator decides two things in the Features tab:

• which features are available in the panel;
• in which interface each one appears: the standard interface, the requester portal or both.

Making a feature available does not change anyone's screen. Each person turns on their own. This avoids the classic mistake of imposing a font or spacing on the whole company to serve a few people, and it also avoids the opposite: hiding the feature behind a formal request.

What the module does not do

It is worth being clear about the limit. Accessibility is not a screen reader and does not replace operating system tools such as zoom, high contrast and the color filters of Windows and macOS. It also does not make GLPI compliant with WCAG or eMAG on its own. Compliance depends on the content, the forms and the configuration of each environment. What the module does is add supporting features where GLPI leaves gaps, such as the status that changes only its color.

How to enable it

1. Update the NexTool plugin to version 6.49.0 or newer.
2. In NexTool, in the module list, install and enable Accessibility.
3. In the module's Features tab, choose the available features and the interface where each one appears.
4. If you want to offer Libras, read the Integrations tab, turn on VLibras and run the connectivity test.
5. Let users know: the panel is in the accessibility icon in the header and in My settings, Accessibility tab.

Who it is for

For any company that has people with color blindness, dyslexia, low vision, motion sensitivity or deafness among its technicians and requesters, which tends to be almost every company with more than a few dozen users. It is especially useful for public bodies and companies that serve the public through the requester portal, where you cannot choose who will open the ticket.

It also helps teams that already have an accessibility policy and need something concrete in GLPI to show, without customizing the system's code.

Compatibility

• GLPI: 10, 11 and 12
• Plan: free
• Plugin: NexTool 6.49.0 or newer
• Interfaces: standard interface and requester portal

Next step

Accessibility is part of NexTool, a module ecosystem that extends GLPI without code customization. See every feature on the module page or talk to our team if you want help making the requester portal more accessible.

Sources: VLibras, Governo Digital; W3C, Understanding SC 1.4.12 Text Spacing; eMAG, Brazilian e-Government Accessibility Model; Braille Institute, Atkinson Hyperlegible.

Reviewed by the NexTool Solutions team.