Re: A question on Screen Reader Speed Standards
- From: "Alex Hall" <mehgcap@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 9 Dec 2009 12:48:51 -0500
Most screen readers have either a scripting language, which can speak through
the user's preferences saved by the reader, or an API to make the reader speak
a string, again according to the reader's settings. You then have SAPI, which
has its own API.
Have a great day,
Alex
New email address: mehgcap@xxxxxxxxx
----- Original Message -----
From: Andreas Stefik
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2009 12:26
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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