WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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Re: BrowseAloud

for

From: E.A. Draffan
Date: Apr 2, 2011 11:48AM

I am coming in late to this discussion but we have made a cross browser toolbar that offers very basic TTS (Festival Scottish voice at the moment) for those with dyslexia (LD and other difficulties). It has several supporting features including the chance to change the size of text, colours, text type, spell check, dictionary etc. It does not have high quality voices or text highlighting as the voice reads aloud. However, it is free and open source - we want to develop it further but please feel free to try it. It is also linked to the Fix the Web service. http://access.ecs.soton.ac.uk/ToolBar/download or http://www.fixtheweb.net/toolbar

There is also a Moodle version http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=13&;rid=2510


Best wishes E.A.

Mrs E.A. Draffan
Learning Societies Lab,
ECS, University of Southampton,
Tel +44 (0)23 8059 7246
http://access.ecs.soton.ac.uk
http://www.emptech.info


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of LSnider
Sent: 02 April 2011 18:14
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] BrowseAloud

Hi Robyn,

Thanks for this information. I agree that people with dyslexia, ADD, ADHD, etc. are forgotten. I am trying to change that :)

See my view today is that free programs like NVDA are so easy to get and use that why would one want a pay model? Of course the user doesn't pay, but it does cost. Although I see your point about getting the site owners to take that responsibility.

Cheers

Lisa

On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 11:38 AM, Robyn Hunt < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Hi,
> BrowseAloud has been designed for the many people with dyslexia and
> related conditions, who are often forgotten when accessibility is considered.
> While it is installed on individual sites it makes a change for
> individual disabled people not to have to bear a lot of the cost of
> accessibility by having to provide their own assistive technology, so
> in a way it fits with the 'social model' of disability by putting the
> whole responsibility on the site owner to provide access.
> It is not suitable, and is not meant to be suitable for blind users.
> Cheers
> Robyn
>
>