Seeking speech synthesizer min/max capabilities.

Gregory, Janina, Peter, George, and others,

In an attempt to clearly identify what user agents must to do 
conform to the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines, the Working
Group has been investigating the "minimal requirements" of the
document (you can track our progress online [1]). This email is
about identifying the minimal requirements for user agents that
synthesize speech.

On 15 June, Gregory sent data to the Working Group about the slowest
and fastest speech rates of several tools [2]: Eloquence for
Jaws, ViaVoice, Orpheus, and Microsoft Speech Engine. This is very
useful information and real-world data is just what we need to advance
our document. 

In the 10 June Working Draft of the Guidelines [3], checkpoint 4.11
reads:

    Allow the user to configure synthesized speech pitch, gender,
    and other articulation characteristics.

At its 15 June teleconference, the Working Group resolved to delete
the ambiguous "and other articulation characteristics" and the more
specific checkpoint will read:

    Allow the user to configure synthesized voice gender, pitch, 
    pitch range, stress, and richness.

We are seeking real-world values for these characteristics in speech
synthesizers. It would greatly help the Working Group if anyone familiar
with speech synthesizer technology could send information to this 
list about the relevant capabilities of today's technologies.

Your contributions are greatly appreciated! Please note that we
are also examining the range of values described in chapter 19
(Aural Style Sheets) of the CSS2 Recommendation [4].

Thank you,

 - Ian

[1] http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/2000/05/ua-minreqs
[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ua/2000AprJun/0482.html
[3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ua/2000AprJun/0481.html
[4] http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/aural

-- 
Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel:                         +1 831 457-2842
Cell:                        +1 917 450-8783

Received on Saturday, 1 July 2000 00:44:03 UTC