Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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Do any screen readers utilize alternating voice types for clarity? (self.Blind)
submitted by ubershmekel
I have good vision, but I'm trying to learn how to use VoiceOver on a mac so I can test sites for accessibility and because I get bored reading long text.
I noticed that when I'm browsing with the screen reader, there's two different types of content:
* The meta information like "group", "heading", "press this to do that".
* The content like the heading's text like "Welcome to the hub for blind and visually impaired redditors".
Would it be useful to have these two spoken by different voices to make it easier to differentiate? Eg the meta information by a male speaker and the content by a female speaker?
I noticed that when I'm browsing with the screen reader, there's two different types of content:
* The meta information like "group", "heading", "press this to do that".
* The content like the heading's text like "Welcome to the hub for blind and visually impaired redditors".
Would it be useful to have these two spoken by different voices to make it easier to differentiate? Eg the meta information by a male speaker and the content by a female speaker?
CloudyBeep 2 points 2y ago
It's possible to make these changes in JAWS, but very few people do. I think you can do it with VoiceOver, but I'm not sure.
retrolental_morose 2 points 2y ago
you can also replace the verbal metadata with sounds in both JAWS and NVDA.
It's much quicker to hear "Welcome!" with a distinct click than "welcome! Heading Level 2"
It's much quicker to hear "Welcome!" with a distinct click than "welcome! Heading Level 2"
CloudyBeep 1 points 2y ago
Yes. Can NVDA use different voices though?
retrolental_morose 2 points 2y ago
No, not to my knowledge.
retrolental_morose 1 points 2y ago
JAWS had this concept natively also: a screen voice, message voice, keyboard voice and so on. I think it wasn't widely used and confused many people, but it was there from the very early JFW days.
codeofdusk 1 points 2y ago
$1 does this and it’s very useful in that environment.
Marconius 1 points 2y ago
In MacOS, you can play with different voices by setting the Accessibility > Speech voice to something different than the VoiceOver voice, but that's to read out system events and is used by a few apps like Zoom and RSG. For web content, I haven't really looked into altering the voice, but I wouldn't want to hear different voices for web element callouts since it would throw off my cognitive flow when paying attention to the content.
The only direct screen reader vocal change that's expected is language differentials when span content is written in a different language than the main page or when the html lang attribute is altered. When VoiceOver sees a new lang attribute, it will read the content out in the correct language and automatically switch to the correct voice.
The only direct screen reader vocal change that's expected is language differentials when span content is written in a different language than the main page or when the html lang attribute is altered. When VoiceOver sees a new lang attribute, it will read the content out in the correct language and automatically switch to the correct voice.
retrolental_morose 1 points 2y ago
I do utilise a quotation voice when reading fiction, such that a book's dialogue is offset in pitch compared to its narrative.
I started because JAWS introduced the feature and I just wanted to play - must have been quite some years ago. I no longer use JAWS regularly but retained the feature because I got used to it and I find reading fiction with it a far more engaging experience .
I started because JAWS introduced the feature and I just wanted to play - must have been quite some years ago. I no longer use JAWS regularly but retained the feature because I got used to it and I find reading fiction with it a far more engaging experience .
CloudyBeep 1 points 2y ago
How do you do this?
retrolental_morose 2 points 2y ago
I have homebrew software to turn my paid-for or borrowed ebooks into Tts-read audio I can carry around on a portable player.
Balabolka, on Windows, would allow for a similar process.
Shame voiceDream on iOS doesn't let you do it too?
Balabolka, on Windows, would allow for a similar process.
Shame voiceDream on iOS doesn't let you do it too?
CloudyBeep 1 points 2y ago
It sounded from your previous comment like you could do it within JAWS.
retrolental_morose 2 points 2y ago
oh certainly you could - the speech and sounds had a quotation voice in the text attributes section.
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