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Re: BrowseAloud

for

From: Stephen L Noble
Date: Mar 24, 2011 6:30AM


There are a variety of reasons why a service like BrowseAloud is used.
The primary use cases would be for portions of the general public like
the senior population with sight which is becoming limited, non-native
speakers, and members of the general public who have learning and mild
cognitive disabilities but are not being served by any type of
rehabilitation agency and so do not have access to funding for assistive
technology, or may not consider themselves "disabled." It is the same
rationale in many ways for some of the accessibility tools built into
modern operating systems, like the "ease of access" settings in Windows.
None of this is meant to replace the role for assistive technology, nor
the need for accessibility in websites.




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-- Steve Noble
Chair, National Technology Task Force
Learning Disabilities Association of America
<EMAIL REMOVED>
502-969-3088

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>>> Peter Krantz < <EMAIL REMOVED> > 3/24/2011 7:04 AM >>>
On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 11:53, Patrick H. Lauke
< <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Users that need speech are far better served with having something
> running on their machine that works on all sites, not just on select
> ones that paid to get BA to run there.

I can imagine several use cases where on-site speech could be
beneficial (using someone elses terminal etc.) but as you indicate, a
need for speech is probably better served with locally available
software, which may provide better means for configuration and may
work in other software as well (e.g. a Word document).

Has anyone seen any research on the benefits for this type of service?
What is the main reason to implement it?

Regards,

Peter