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Re: dictation bridge

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From: deborah.kaplan
Date: Apr 21, 2016 12:54PM

Hi all,

I want to squee about DictationBridge, even though Lucy posted while I was composing this message. I've also got a different spin on the project than most of the people involved, so my pitch is just as excited, but from a different direction.

DictationBridge, in a nutshell, is an open source project to allow users of speech recognition to control screen readers. Eventually, it's intended to be technology-agnostic, though it's initially being tested on Windows with the free screen reader NVDA, and with Dragon and Windows Speech Recognition. The main thrust of the project is on enabling screen reader users to use dictation software, but I'm the inverse of tat use case: a speech recognition user who wants it to be easier for me to use a screen reader.

Of course screen reader users want the convenience of speech recognition, and of course screen reader users are just as likely as anyone else and up with RSI or other conditions which make it difficult, painful, or impossible to type. And that's why the project is super important! But here's my take: I'm a screen reader user who often needs to test the accessibility of applications and webpages, and that means sometimes I need to test with screen readers. Right now, I can't do that testing hand-free, which limits the amount of it I can do before I go cry in the corner because it hurts so badly. DictationBridge will change that. Lucy said that DictationBridge will improve her spelling--well, it will improve my testing. :)

(I also have a less-accessibility specific desire for DictationBridge, which is more about Universal Design. Like, I suspect, many of us who work in accessibility, I have learned about the cool features of AT and accessibility features I don't need myself. Screen readers are incredibly handy: when I'm walking down the street and want to read a webpage with voiceover, when I'm having a bad hand day and can't hold a device, when I'm cooking. I'm imagining a not-too-distant future respond to my email Not just hands-free, but while I'm walking around or otherwise not near my computer. Now if only we could get a TTS voice that sounds like Majel Barrett Roddenberry, would basically be in full-on Star Trek mode.)

Please check out the site and consider subscribing or supporting!

Fundraising campaign at IndieGogo which explains in more detail: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/dictationbridge/
Project site and blog: http://dictationbridge.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dictationbridge
Audio-only demo of the product: https://www.dropbox.com/s/rks2m3x7hejcjd8/DictationBridge%20Promo.mp3

Here's a couple of quotations from the site's pages:

"DictationBridge will contain all of the features identified as actually meaningful to blind dictation users, a feature set based on extensive research into the actual usage habits of such individuals. It will support both MS Windows dictation and a number of different versions of Nuance's Dragon products. It is a major goal of the DictationBridge team to deliver a solution that is as cost effective for end users as possible, if used with the built in Windows dictation system and the NVDA screen reader, end users will enjoy it at no cost to themselves at all. "


"When DictationBridge 1.0 is released it will:

* Be compatible with NVDA, JAWS and Window-Eyes.
* provide screen reader users with access to the built-in MS Windows dictation facility as well as with a number of different versions of the Dragon software packages from Nuance.
* be distributed for free with 100% of its source code included.
* be fully documented and will come complete with all of the documentation any user may want.
* have professional technical support available to users who choose to purchase such."

-Deborah Kaplan