Re: Audio formats

Yep, I have heard of it. A university in Australia did it five or six 
years ago. It wasn't an overall success then for two types of reason.

One problem was that it gets in the way of people using voice output 
already, so they don't like it.

The other problem is that they actually put some audio there instead of 
text, which doesn't help anyone who can't hear web content (including 
but not restricted to people who are Deaf), and in trying to rectify 
that things fell out of date. Providing conflicting information is a 
problem for everyone, but particularly for people who had relied on the 
wrong version...

I have heard of it done since then, with the same problems. It's 
actually a fairly common approach, and in my opinion it is the wrong 
solution for the wrong problem. It creates problems for the people you 
are trying to help, and I believe it is not a good solution for the 
people that it can help (people with cognitive disabilities

cheers

Chaals

On Wednesday, Feb 19, 2003, at 03:39 Australia/Melbourne, Webmaster@EDD 
wrote:

> I've never heard of anyone anywhere ever using recorded audio versions 
> of
> written content in an effort to improve accessibility for the visually
> impaired community.
>
> Was wondering if anyone else has.
>
--
Charles McCathieNevile           charles@sidar.org
Fundación SIDAR                       http://www.sidar.org

Received on Tuesday, 18 February 2003 23:38:14 UTC