Actions for AT and synthesizer developers

[mitchellevan]

TODO are any of these ideas already implemented somewhere?

Brainstorm

Allow users to announce roles and prompts in the same language as the content.

• Cite users in my interviews.
• Compare with kiosk behavior

TODO check numerals, spelling, NATO alphabet, symbols and emoji > anything needs change?

Label-like things use wrong synth language

Known bugs (see other issues)

Keep adding more languages and scripts

• AT UI
• synthesizers
• braille

Announce the name of the language of content

Why? Mainly, as a user I want to recognize when there's content I won't understand so I can skip it; or go get a synthesizer for content I want to understand. Secondarily, it might be nice to know specifically which language I'm skipping.

My observations: JAWS has this. NVDA does not. TODO others?

Automatically announce the language name - proposed design of preferences:

• For languages not in the user's language preferences list
• For languages not supported in the user's current synthesizer
• Never announce automatically

For the above preferences, which should be default? Future user research needed

Also provide a command to announce language information about the current line.

Along with this, screen readers should know the names of all languages. < test results from my sample of 100

Further proposed features

Jump to next language change

Jump to next language I know (languages in my content preferences list)

Help me find a synthesizer and voice for the language of this content

AT language preferences list

• Inherit from OS language preferences list, and
• Allow AT to override the list (like browsers do)

Configurable prosody for language switching. Useful for a multilingual voice, (TODO example?) where the same voice is accurately speaking more than one language, to recognize the switch and give the brain a chance to adjust.

• Short pause when switching languages (default; configurable)
• Different pitch
• Different speed - also useful if I understand one language better than another