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Thread: Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Visitors Can Now Listen to Your Website
Number of posts in this thread: 6 (In chronological order)
From: Glenda
Date: Thu, Jun 30 2005 12:48PM
Subject: Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Visitors Can Now Listen to Your Website
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Visitors Can Now Listen to Your Website
Surrey, BC
From: Bryce Fields
Date: Thu, Jun 30 2005 1:01PM
Subject: Re: Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Visitors Can Now Listen to Your Website
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On 6/30/05, Glenda < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
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> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>
>
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> Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Visitors Can Now Listen to Your Website
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> Surrey, BC June 28, 2005 Until now it has been difficult, if not
> impossible, for those with disabilities that affect reading to access and
> enjoy the Internet. Browsealoud, an innovative new...
Have you addressed how Browsealoud tends to read from the lowermost
tab in Firefox when multiple tabs are open, regardless of what tab is
active?
--
Bryce Fields, Webmaster
Where I Work: Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education
Where I Play: www.royalrodent.com
"Do or do not! There is no try!" -- Yoda
From: Glenda
Date: Thu, Jun 30 2005 1:07PM
Subject: RE: Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Visitors Can Now Listen to Your Website
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Hi Bryce,
I would suggest contacting Browsealoud tech support with this question.
Perhaps they have a fix.
Cheers,
Glenda
Glenda Watson Hyatt, Principal
Soaring Eagle Communications
Accessible websites. Accessible content. Accessible solutions.
www.webaccessibility.biz
-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ]On Behalf Of Bryce Fields
Have you addressed how Browsealoud tends to read from the lowermost
tab in Firefox when multiple tabs are open, regardless of what tab is
active?
--
Bryce Fields, Webmaster
Where I Work: Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education
Where I Play: www.royalrodent.com
"Do or do not! There is no try!" -- Yoda
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From: John Foliot - WATS.ca
Date: Thu, Jun 30 2005 1:50PM
Subject: RE: Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Visitors Can Now Listen to Your Website
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Austin, Darrel wrote:
>
> So, outside of the PR mumbo jumbo, what is this? Is it like
> any other screen
> reader in that it reads text in a systhesized manner? The
> main benefit being
> that the end-user doesn't have to purchase software?
No, the developer must do the purchasing. From their site:
"Browsealoud is a subscription-based solution to speech enable website
content.
It is unique in its delivery concept. The software is free to download and
the information service provider pays an annual charge to speech enable
their web site."
So: end users must download a plug-in, *AND* content developers must
purchase a subscription license. Not sure exactly who the target market is,
as those users who require audio "enhancement" will probably seek out a
solution that goes beyond web content (i.e. a screen reader).
They appear to have made some in-roads in the UK, but IMHO this tool falls
into the also-ran category (with other stop-gap solutions such as BBC's
Betsie and Lift's Text Transcoder). I honestly don't see significant
adoption any time in the future; it's been around for a couple of years
already. With the emergence of integrated speech tools in browsers (Opera,
Safari) and Open Source solutions (Fangs, Fire Vox, etc.) I can't see savvy
site owners spending the money.
JF
--
John Foliot = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Web Accessibility Specialist / Co-founder of WATS.ca
Web Accessibility Testing and Services
http://www.wats.ca
Phone: 1-613-482-7053
From: Michael D. Roush
Date: Thu, Jun 30 2005 1:53PM
Subject: Re: Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Visitors Can Now Listen to Your Website
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Austin, Darrel wrote:
>"Browsealoud is a Windows application designed for use with Internet
>Explorer 5.5, Netscape Navigator 7, and Mozilla 1.7.3 upwards."
>
>Great. Another accessibility product only accessible to Windows users. ;0)
>
>
>
Forgive me if I am missing something here....
Doesn't the very fact of this being a "Windows(-only) application"
violate the heart of Guideline 9 of the WAI... "Design for device
independence"? I don't see how paying for a service that will read a
site to a user if they are willing/able to install the plug-in makes a
site any more accessible than simply coding it properly and allowing the
user to have control over how they want the information presented to
them. I think the heart of US Rehab Act 508, subsection 1194.22(m)
implies that the plug-in that is linked-to should work on more than just
one operating system as well.
The very nature of downloading a plug-in makes it sound like a
visually-impaired user would be surfing around on the 'Net, until
finally coming to this site and being cued (how?) that they can download
a plug-in that will then read the site to them. How exactly will that
work in practice without any screen reader or assistive tech already on
the client machine that could handle reading the site? It strikes me a
little like my friend in San Jose telling me "Come to my house and I'll
give you a good set of directions how to get here."
From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Thu, Jul 07 2005 9:56PM
Subject: Re: Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Visitors Can Now Listen to Your Website
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Again, sorry for coming in late on this:
Glenda wrote:
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
At least it's nice to see that they're resorting to more traditional
press releases now, rather than underhand tactics like pretending to be
a "komputer User with sever dyslexia" on a variety of web dev and
accessibility fora...
--
Patrick H. Lauke
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