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Thread: Speech enabling software

Number of posts in this thread: 18 (In chronological order)

From: Kelly Hokkanen
Date: Tue, Dec 13 2005 1:00PM
Subject: Speech enabling software
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Hi,

Do any of you have experience with speech enabling software such as
BrowseAloud or Readspeaker? These are becoming more widely used for UK
and European government websites, to provide enhanced accessibility for
users with cognitive disabilities, low vision, low literacy, and for
non-native speakers (English as a second language, etc). We are
considering implementation of this type of software for our state
government portal, and I'm trying to gather further information
regarding the value/benefit to the public. We've tested both products
here, so I'm not looking for product critiques, but rather, I'm looking
for feedback as far as whether the software is of actual benefit to
those target audiences and whether they are likely to use it.

Thank you,
Kelly
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kelly Hokkanen
Director of Creative Services
InforME: Information Resource of Maine
(207) 621-2600 x28
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
www.informe.org

From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Tue, Dec 13 2005 5:40PM
Subject: Re: Speech enabling software
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Kelly Hokkanen wrote:

> Do any of you have experience with speech enabling software such as
> BrowseAloud or Readspeaker?

On a purely personal level (and one of personal ethics), I don't like
BrowseAloud. True, they moved away from their early "viral" marketing
attempts, seeding online fora with a fake dyslexic user praising the
product (see
<http://www.accessifyforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=820&;highlight=browsealoud>
and <http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=dyslexicduncan>; - posting from
one of their own domains, funnily enough), but I still believe their
business model to be fundamentally flawed (something which I've meant to
write about for some time, and a rant that many of those who have met me
in person have been subjected to)

- technically, their plugin/addon works on all sites. No change on the
web author's end is required;
- however, the plugin downloads a whitelist which tells it which sites
it should work on (incidentally, that whitelist is nothing but a simple
plain text ASCII file, so editing it manually is a breeze - if you move
past the red-herring copy in the place you'd expect it to be).

So, a plugin that would potentially benefit all users with dyslexia etc,
on all sites...but it will only work on those sites that paid for the
privilege of making it into the whitelist?

To me, that's a skewed business model: they're holding site owners at
ransom, and placing the responsibility for making their site
"browsealoud enabled" on their shoulder (and wallets), where the plugin
could already work on the site and benefit the user.

Now, I don't mind that they're trying to make a buck out of this
accessibility gravy train. But why make the plugin free and then put the
onus on the site owners to pay for the plugin to work with their site
(i.e. including their URL in the whitelist, which browsealoud
periodically asks to update)? Larger pots of money? Corporate
responsibility gone bonkers? "Hey, all we do is give the guys money and
our site becomes accessible to dyslexic users"?
I'd rather see a more ethical and sustainable model where the plugin
costs a fraction of the cost set up for web site owners...say the whole
thing cost the user a few dollars/pounds. Make it work on ALL sites (as
it already can, natively...before being crippled with the whitelist).
Offer collateral services to site owners (accessibility review, design
consultancy, etc).

As it stands, BrowseAloud should really be called "Browse Allowed". The
fact that half-way reputable groups like GAWDS actually endorsed it
(because of a free offer) is even more annoying.

Stay away from BrowseAloud. Don't support their skewed business model.

IMHO, of course...

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke
___________
re

From: Paul Bohman
Date: Wed, Dec 14 2005 5:00PM
Subject: Re: Speech enabling software
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Patrick H. Lauke wrote:

> As it stands, BrowseAloud should really be called "Browse Allowed". ...
> Stay away from BrowseAloud. Don't support their skewed business model.

I agree in terms of the complaints against their business model. It's a
strange one. It's not sustainable. Worst of all, it doesn't make the web
accessible. It only makes certain sites more accessible.

On the other hand, if we ignore the business model and look at the
product only in terms of its technical merit, I believe it does hold
some promise.

The fact that they've even attempted to create a product to help those
with dyslexia is much more than most other companies or organizations
have done. In this sense, we ought to encourage the further development
of products like this--again, in terms of their technical merit.

The idea of reading content out loud as you hover over it with your
mouse, and highlighting text (in the Internet Explorer implementation)
as it's read to you seems like a useful approach to at least some
aspects of dyslexia.

There are a few bugs with the Firefox implementation, but the Internet
Explorer implementation works quite well. In Firefox it only works if
you have one tab open. If you have two or more tabs open, it still reads
the content of the leftmost tab, so you may be hovering over the page on
the second tab, but it's as if the second page is transparent, because
Browsaloud reads the content of the page underneath the top page even
though you can't see page underneath.

Unfortunately, I wonder if their business model is going to get in the
way of technical development. There are so few web sites that are
"Browsealoud enabled" that it's hard for users to give feedback on how
useful the tool is on a wide range of web sites or types of web content.

--
Paul Bohman
Director of Training Products and Services
WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind)
www.webaim.org
Utah State University
www.usu.edu

Available now:
"The WebAIM Guide to Web Accessibility"
www.webaim.org/products/training

Join me at ED-MEDIA 2006, June 26-30, 2006, in Orlando, FL, USA.
http://www.aace.org/conf/EDMEDIA/

From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Wed, Dec 14 2005 5:40PM
Subject: Re: Speech enabling software
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Paul Bohman wrote:

> On the other hand, if we ignore the business model and look at the
> product only in terms of its technical merit, I believe it does hold
> some promise.

Yup, definitely agree. That's why I'd say it would make so much more
sense to either give the plugin away for free in an un-restricted
version, or charge users (rather than site owners) a nominal fee, and
then make proper money from offering accessibility consultancy, web
design services, etc.

> Unfortunately, I wonder if their business model is going to get in the
> way of technical development. There are so few web sites that are
> "Browsealoud enabled" that it's hard for users to give feedback on how
> useful the tool is on a wide range of web sites or types of web content.

If you want, I can send you my (deceptively simple) instructions to add
any site to the whitelist with nothing more than a text editor...for
testing and evaluation purposes only, of course.

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke
___________
re

From: Glenda Watson Hyatt
Date: Wed, Dec 14 2005 6:20PM
Subject: RE: Speech enabling software
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Paul Bohman wrote:

> On the other hand, if we ignore the business model and look at the
> product only in terms of its technical merit, I believe it does hold
> some promise.

Patrick wrote:
Yup, definitely agree. That's why I'd say it would make so much more
sense to either give the plugin away for free in an un-restricted
version, or charge users (rather than site owners) a nominal fee, and
then make proper money from offering accessibility consultancy, web
design services, etc.

Glenda writes:

As a person with a disability who has to pay ridiculously overly-priced
prices for "accessibility" - whether wheelchairs, assistive technologies,
blah, blah, blah - it is nice to think that some site owners share the cost
of "accessibility".

Cheers,
Glenda
--
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Checked by AVG Free Edition.
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From: Glenda Watson Hyatt
Date: Wed, Dec 14 2005 7:00PM
Subject: RE: Speech enabling software
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Glenda Watson Hyatt wrote:

> As a person with a disability who has to pay ridiculously overly-priced
> prices for "accessibility" - whether wheelchairs, assistive technologies,
> blah, blah, blah - it is nice to think that some site owners share the
cost
> of "accessibility".

Patrick wrote:

Yes, but taking the analogy of the wheelchair, what BrowseAloud have
done here is invent a completely new type of wheelchair which
(supposedly) only works on a particular type of surface; they give it
away for free, and then tell every building owner that they need to pay
them to add their special surface compound on all their floor
surfaces...when it fact it turns out that they only made their
wheelchair recognise whether or not it's running on the proprietary
surface and cut off the electric motor if it's not.

I agree, sharing the cost and even reverting the traditional model is
fine, but I find it ethically questionable how their plugin could work
on all sites, for everybody...but they neuter it to only work on
"approved" sites. That's simply holding site owners to ransom.

Glenda adds:

Interesting analogy. I need to give it further thought. However, it is
different from a software CD that restricts the number of installations or
prevents copying, etc? Just wondering.

Cheers,
Glenda

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
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From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Wed, Dec 14 2005 7:40PM
Subject: Re: Speech enabling software
← Previous message | Next message →

Glenda Watson Hyatt wrote:

> As a person with a disability who has to pay ridiculously overly-priced
> prices for "accessibility" - whether wheelchairs, assistive technologies,
> blah, blah, blah - it is nice to think that some site owners share the cost
> of "accessibility".

Yes, but taking the analogy of the wheelchair, what BrowseAloud have
done here is invent a completely new type of wheelchair which
(supposedly) only works on a particular type of surface; they give it
away for free, and then tell every building owner that they need to pay
them to add their special surface compound on all their floor
surfaces...when it fact it turns out that they only made their
wheelchair recognise whether or not it's running on the proprietary
surface and cut off the electric motor if it's not.

I agree, sharing the cost and even reverting the traditional model is
fine, but I find it ethically questionable how their plugin could work
on all sites, for everybody...but they neuter it to only work on
"approved" sites. That's simply holding site owners to ransom.

--
Patrick H. Lauke
___________
re

From: Christian Heilmann
Date: Thu, Dec 15 2005 4:20AM
Subject: Re: Speech enabling software
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> I agree, sharing the cost and even reverting the traditional model is
> fine, but I find it ethically questionable how their plugin could work
> on all sites, for everybody...but they neuter it to only work on
> "approved" sites. That's simply holding site owners to ransom.
>
> Glenda adds:
>
> Interesting analogy. I need to give it further thought. However, it is
> different from a software CD that restricts the number of installations or
> prevents copying, etc? Just wondering.

They also restrict the amount of end users, whereas browsealoud
doesn't, as the end users are the site visitors. It would be like
Mozilla charging you for every visitor to show your site.

--
Chris Heilmann
Blog: http://www.wait-till-i.com
Writing: http://icant.co.uk/
Binaries: http://www.onlinetools.org/

From: Joshue O Connor
Date: Thu, Dec 15 2005 5:00AM
Subject: Re: Speech enabling software
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We are just about to add Browse aloud to our site (www.cfit.ie), so I have found this thread interesting and informative.

> If you want, I can send you my (deceptively simple) instructions to add any site to the whitelist with nothing more than a text editor...for testing and evaluation purposes only, of course.

Patrick, any more info/experiences with Browse Aloud and your whitelist instructions ( for eval only, of course), are very welcome. If you like, please send them to me, off thread, at = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =

As an aside, in terms of the model, it would make more sense that they give it out for free and by doing so become more "visible" and thereby attract sponsorship and advertising or whatever they need to pay the bills. I had my reservations about Browse Aloud, for other reasons, mainly that a site had to be "enabled" to use it. A nice standards friendly site should be all the enabling we need to use these apps.

Anyway,we are going to give it a go and I'll keep y'all posted as to how I find it.

I'm signing of in a couple of days so - Happy Xmas to the WebAIM list!!

Josh

Patrick H. Lauke wrote:
> Paul Bohman wrote:
>
>> On the other hand, if we ignore the business model and look at the
>> product only in terms of its technical merit, I believe it does hold
>> some promise.
>
>
> Yup, definitely agree. That's why I'd say it would make so much more
> sense to either give the plugin away for free in an un-restricted
> version, or charge users (rather than site owners) a nominal fee, and
> then make proper money from offering accessibility consultancy, web
> design services, etc.
>
>> Unfortunately, I wonder if their business model is going to get in the
>> way of technical development. There are so few web sites that are
>> "Browsealoud enabled" that it's hard for users to give feedback on how
>> useful the tool is on a wide range of web sites or types of web content.
>
>
> If you want, I can send you my (deceptively simple) instructions to add
> any site to the whitelist with nothing more than a text editor...for
> testing and evaluation purposes only, of course.
>
> P

From: Penny Roberts
Date: Thu, Dec 15 2005 5:40AM
Subject: Re: Speech enabling software
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From: Penny Roberts
Date: Thu, Dec 15 2005 6:20AM
Subject: Re: Speech enabling software
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It was only yesterday that I spotted a site that was Browsealoud
enabled, I've never seen one before. So today I downloaded the software
to test it. I know that it is installed and working because it read out
the Browsealoud homepage.
Sadly when I went back to the enabled site
(http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/) I couldn't hear a thing!

Penny

From: Penny Roberts
Date: Thu, Dec 15 2005 7:00AM
Subject: Re: Speech enabling software
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Penny Roberts wrote:

> Sadly when I went back to the enabled site
> (http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/) I couldn't hear a thing!

The site doesn't seem to be in the directory on the Browsealoud site.
According to the Financial Ombudsman's accessibility page they are using
Browsealoud for a trial period 'to gauge the usefulness of a "speech
browser" to people using the ombudsman website'.
Maybe the trial is over but they haven't updated the pages yet.

Penny

From: ben morrison
Date: Thu, Dec 15 2005 9:40AM
Subject: Re: Speech enabling software
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> It was only yesterday that I spotted a site that was Browsealoud
> enabled, I've never seen one before. So today I downloaded the software
> to test it. I know that it is installed and working because it read out
> the Browsealoud homepage.
> Sadly when I went back to the enabled site
> (http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/) I couldn't hear a thing!

Im coming in a bit late on this thread so sorry if this has been talked about.

We are currently evaluating the use of readspeakerXT
(http://www.readspeaker.com/) on our website, it would be good if we
could get some feedback or anyones thoughts on this product. We like
the fact that the end-user doesn't have to download any plugin,
although the cost is obviously an issue for lots of companies.

My intial thoughts are it puts everything into a frameset so thats
potentially very bad for the end user.

Anyway, any opinions would be gratefully recieved as I am yet to find
much info/reviews regarding this product:

www.poptech.coop (click on listen in the top menu)

regards
ben

From: Austin, Darrel
Date: Thu, Dec 15 2005 10:20AM
Subject: RE: Speech enabling software
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> I dont think its aimed as a replacement for a screen reader,
> there is a small amount of interaction - you can get a list
> of links and goto a numbered link. It can highlight areas
> whilst speaking them - we havent included all of this
> functionality yet - which involves adding tags to the html code.

At readerspeak's own site, when I visit it, I have to click SAY IT and
then it pops up a separate window that just reads me the entire page. I
can't seem to interact with it all. Of course, clicking on a new page
requires me to close the old 'speak window' then re-click SAY IT to get
that page read to me.

I don't know if it's an option, but I'd think it'd be easier if the
audio player was actually embedded on the page itself so one didn't have
to deal with this additional window.

The framed version seems less than ideal too. Adding framesets to the
page would seem to add additional usability issues that may outweigh the
speech benefit.

-Darrel

From: ben morrison
Date: Thu, Dec 15 2005 11:00AM
Subject: Re: Speech enabling software
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> Just so I understand, who is the main target for these types of
> technologies?
>
> Is it those that are dyslexic and perhaps those that can understand the
> language but maybe not read it as clearly?
>

I have been asking the same question - my guess is those with learning
difficulties, is it an added bonus?.

> The drawback to the readspeaker, it seems, is that I can't interact with
> it. It just reads the page from top to bottom, so it certainly doesn't
> look like a replacement for a screen reader.

I dont think its aimed as a replacement for a screen reader, there is
a small amount of interaction - you can get a list of links and goto a
numbered link. It can highlight areas whilst speaking them - we havent
included all of this functionality yet - which involves adding tags to
the html code.

ben

From: Austin, Darrel
Date: Thu, Dec 15 2005 11:40AM
Subject: RE: Speech enabling software
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> We are currently evaluating the use of readspeakerXT
> (http://www.readspeaker.com/) on our website, it would be
> good if we could get some feedback or anyones thoughts on
> this product. We like the fact that the end-user doesn't have
> to download any plugin, although the cost is obviously an
> issue for lots of companies.

Just so I understand, who is the main target for these types of
technologies?

Is it those that are dyslexic and perhaps those that can understand the
language but maybe not read it as clearly?

The drawback to the readspeaker, it seems, is that I can't interact with
it. It just reads the page from top to bottom, so it certainly doesn't
look like a replacement for a screen reader.

Though, I must say, that voice is infinitely better than the one JAWS
uses (which seems to be stuck in circa-War-Games era voice
technology...)

-Darrel

From: Conyers, Dwayne
Date: Thu, Dec 15 2005 4:20PM
Subject: RE: Speech enabling software
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I had a project with ZERO budget, so we downloaded the free speech tools
from the Microsoft Agent site and just did a quick JavaScript that
provided speech. It worked because it was on an intranet with a
baseline for technology -- might be a harder sell on a public site.
But, it is free and easy to program if cost is an issue.

If you have cash to spend, I have had success with the Dragon
(nuance.com) tools.

--
Dwacon
www.dwacon.com

From: Mark Magennis
Date: Fri, Dec 16 2005 3:40AM
Subject: RE: Speech enabling software
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> Just so I understand, who is the main target for these types of
> technologies?

Browsealoud is potentially useful for anyone who has difficulty reading
English text. Does it work with other languages? I don't know. This
includes people with dyslexia, people with low literacy and people whose
first language is not English.

It is not aimed at helping people with vision impairments, although in
the early days when they were using dodgy sales techniques, they did
claim it was useful for blind users. But blind users don't need it
because they will already be using a screen reader or other
text-to-speech software. Users with low vision may find it helpful, but
if all the text on the site can be resized using the built-in browser
controls then it isn't necessary. However, if reading gets tiring then
you might find it helpful to have the option of having text spoken to
you instead or as well.

Mark

Dr. Mark Magennis
Director of the Centre for Inclusive Technology (CFIT)
National Council for the Blind of Ireland
Whitworth Road, Dublin 9, Republic of Ireland
www.cfit.ie

= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = tel: +353 (0)71 914 7464