RE: A question on Screen Reader Speed Standards

Hi,
I suggest that you avoid trying to control screen reader speed unless you want 
to control generic stuff like for cases when someone is not using a screen 
reader. That's because people might like not to have their settings changed 
unexpectedly. Just my two cents worth.

Jim

Highmark recipients,  Read my accessibility 
blog<http://mysites.highmark.com/personal/lidikki/Blog/default.aspx>

"If a green on green tree falls in the forest and you're there, can you see it?"
"Not unless you have a screen reader." :)

From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Andreas Stefik
Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2009 12:27 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: A question on Screen Reader Speed Standards

Hi folks,

I'm working right now on trying to build up our cross platform speech engines 
for the Sappy project and am trying, specifically, to get NetBeans to store 
custom preferences related to screen reader speed. On Mac, we basically just 
pass a flag to the TTS engine with a number, which, I suspect, is words per 
minute, although I'm not completely sure. On PC, things appear to be quite 
different and I'm not sure about all of the open source, and other, solutions 
out there (insert your favorite technology here).

My question is, what would people suggest for standardizing the numbers for 
speed of reading we use for screen readers across all platforms? For example, 
does each screen reader everywhere measure speed in a different way? Should 
just put everything in words per minute and not worry about it, translating any 
screen reader that doesn't comply through some kind of calculation (if 
possible?)? Should we just standardize through some arbitrary metric, like 0 is 
the slowest and 1 is the fastest, then test everywhere to make sure those 
settings are "reasonable" and that the user's system preferences are not 
disturbed?

To be clear, remember that our tool has to, ultimately, be compatible with 
every kind of screen reader, and should still work for the blind even if no 
screen reader is present (or if the screen reader doesn't work well at all). 
That's why I am asking,

Thoughts are welcome,

Stefik

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