Re: [html4all] HTML5 Alternative Text, and Authoring Tools

On May 14, 2008, at 23:33, Gez Lemon wrote:

>> I would hope detecting what strings take very long to speak or that  
>> don't
>> appear to contain words from a dictionary is something that AT  
>> vendors
>> wouldn't need external advice on.
>
> That isn't how screen readers work. Screen readers work by converting
> text into phonemes that they can then synthesise and output to the
> user. This approach is obviously a lot quicker and more flexible than
> containing a static list of dictionary entries.


Whether the speech synthesis is dictionary based is not the point. The  
point is, can a screen reader reasonable have *a* dictionary for its  
speech language. In many cases, the platform provides spell checking,  
so a screen reader could test if a string spell checks successfully to  
make a guess if speaking it will be any good.

-- 
Henri Sivonen
hsivonen@iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/

Received on Wednesday, 14 May 2008 20:48:50 UTC