To help people with difficulty reading or seeing, text to voice services can be extremely effective in getting the full internet experience. By turning written words online into spoken messages, communication can be effective and engaging for listeners.
The goal of this service is to overcome the difficulties people have with reading fluently in ways that affect comprehension. This could be the result of poor eyesight or lack of literacy. It can also be used to proofread a text and see if the words come off as conversational.
How Does Text to Voice Happen
This is done by computers utilizing text to speech systems, which analyze words and convert them into phonetics. A text to speech engine, or TTS, will take these phonetics and play voice clips in a sequence to match the text written. Thanks to advances in technology, this can be done almost instantaneously.
An existing problem for many online users is readability, with the text being incorrectly formatted on some sites. With text to voice systems in place, these problems disappear because all text, no matter the size or format, is all read the same way.
This is advantageous because it applies to everything. Voice interpretations of a text are universal, so the entire internet can be understood in equal measure. For people with disabilities or people needing these resources for other means, it opens the door for many new options they wouldn’t have otherwise.
Who Can it Help
One example of where this service shines is a script for media production. A text to voice system could read aloud the script and help discover glaring issues in dialogue without the need to bring in actors and have them speak physically. The instantaneous response can significantly streamline the scriptwriting process.
Another example could be an elderly patient accessing their medical records online. If the patient has trouble reading the names of medicine or dates for an appointment, that could lead to confusion, but having these important things spoken to them makes it much clearer. This benefits both the patient and the doctors helping them immensely.
Different voice types can be used depending on the service. Many services aim to provide voices that natural and human-sounding. These voices are tailored to audience needs, so, for example, a service in place for a customer service system will sound friendly and professional.
For people relying on the service, the tools they can use to improve the text to voice experience are quality headsets that feel comfortable and provide clear noise-canceling capabilities to rid themselves of distractions.
As text to voice services continue to evolve, the capabilities of those services will be far greater. Faster interpretation of words to speech is assured as the technology to process them progresses. We can also be sure that more support for these services will continue to grow as more companies and industries begin to adopt them for use on whatever offerings they might provide. Implementing these services helps everyone understand the words they read and gives the internet meaning for those who normally could not find any.
