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Thread: Re: BrowseAloud-Thanks
Number of posts in this thread: 3 (In chronological order)
From: LSnider
Date: Sat, Apr 02 2011 11:27AM
Subject: Re: BrowseAloud-Thanks
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I won't clog the list anymore :) Thanks to everyone for a great discussion
on this one, appreciate it!
Cheers
Lisa
From: LSnider
Date: Sat, Apr 02 2011 11:33AM
Subject: Re: BrowseAloud
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Hi John and Patrick,
That is very interesting information, thanks for sharing it.
Cheers
Lisa
On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 5:35 AM, John E Brandt < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Patrick's response below mirror my sentiments exactly. The BA people were
> here in Maine a few years ago lobbying hard for the State Gov IT Dept to put
> it on all their websites. I was not impressed.
>
> John E. Brandt
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
Patrick H. Lauke
Personally, I dislike BrowseAloud's business model. The plugin works
potentially with every site, but as a client you need to pay them to get
added to an explicit whitelist of URLs that unlocks its functionality.
They've been offering discounts/free accounts to government and education
for a while, to drum up apparent adoption.
(oh, and the fact that, back in the days, there were incidents of obvious
astroturfing campaigns like
http://www.accessifyforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=22009 doesn't fill me with
confidence either).
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.
From: E.A. Draffan
Date: Sat, Apr 02 2011 11:48AM
Subject: Re: BrowseAloud
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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 ADDRESS REMOVED = [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS 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 ADDRESS 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
>
>