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FacebookAccessibility for Blogs? New Audio Feature: Listen to Posts
July 2nd, 2007 | Posted in Blogging 7 Comments »
I added a new audio feature to my blog — you can now listen to the posts. It’s a robotic voice automated from Talkr.com. I thought I’d experiment with it, even though I think no human can listen to a robot-generated voice and find much enjoyment from it.
However, if you’re visually impaired, or want to listen to the post while doing other things, or if you’re an audio learner, you might like it. There’s also a voice feed (look in the sidebar, near the bottom).
Talkr.com also allows you to convert your favorite blogs into audio feeds. So if you don’t have time to read all of the posts from your favorite blogs, you can listen to them in your mp3 player. However, until computer-generated audio improves significantly, I doubt this method will gain much popularity.
What do you think — is this feature a good addition to my blog, providing valuable accessibility? Or is it just a useless bell and whistle that adds clutter?
Update: I noticed that the Listen button appears on pages too (like your contact page), but it doesn’t actually work on pages. I learned the author is currently fixing it, so in the meantime I disabled the plugin.
Thanks for writing about this. I am starting at blog about technology for people with disabilities and will use this. People with visual impairments and reading disabilities get used to these voices. This one is not as annoying as some.
Denise
This is a tricky question. You might ask the same question about a building that was designed for handicap accessibility, complete with ADA-approved ramps near every set of stairs.
As a designer, you may feel like the accessibility elements clutter the beauty of the design, however, after you have pushed a wheelchair up a non-ADA ramp (or pulled it up stairs because no ramp was available), you start to really appreciate ramps!
The trick, then for designers, is to include elements that make our designs accessible for those with disabilities, but do it in a way that complements and enhances the overall design.
On the other hand, you also recognize that chances are good that a blind web-surfer won’t stumble upon your site unless they already have the technology that helps them browse the web with audio. So, in that sense the extra feature is a showy way of saying, “look, our site is accessible” when it isn’t really any more or less accessible than any other site, because those that need the audio version already have technology to get it.
I think the “Listen” tool is pretty cool, and I’m all for using it. I think you might even find a way to add it to your design in a way that complements your site and removes any perceived “clutter” from your post pages.
Paul, I like your observation
I’m not sure how visually impaired people surf the web. But it seems right what you say.
The speech quality is really impressive! It’s a neat little toy! I don’t know how much more accessible your blog is because of it, though. I’m sure visually impaired persons have their own tools to assist with browsing the web.
If I were to guess I’d say that text-to-speech and other tools for visually impaired persons probably view websites in a similar fashion to Google and other search engines. Thus, one of the best ways to see your site “through the eyes” of such software is by using the text-only lynx web browser. This will show you the order in which your page content is displayed from beginning to end, largely ignoring things like tables and frames.
http://lynx.browser.org/
I think this is very cool. I volunteer at a reading service, which serves blind people and people who can’t read for other reasons, such as general debility and can’t hold reading materials. A staffer at the service, who is blind, uses the Web quite a bit. I’ll ask her what she thinks, but my gut reaction, particularly for younger people, is that it’s a great idea.
I’m very impressed, too, with the quality of the voicing, if that’s the word. Whoever has developed this has done an amazing job IMO of eliminating the dreadful monotone one associates with electronic readers. With practice, if you were interested, I’m sure you also could figure out what words are likely to get mispronounced.
I noticed that the Listen button appears on pages too (like your contact page), but it doesn’t actually work on pages. I learned the author is currently fixing it, so in the meantime I disabled the plugin.
Thanks of sharing relevant information about audio feature.