This Is What The Web Sounds Like
"CLiCk, Speak" is an extension for the Firefox web browser that provides a simple text-to-speech interface for web pages, intended for sighted users. If you don't already have Firefox, you're missing out! Click the link toward the bottom of the right-side column of this page to download Firefox, then download the extension, and listen to the web.It'll give you a nice feel for some of the accessibility issues that you'll run into when designing sites, as you can listen to a simplified version of what a real screen reader would speak, minus the cues about what HTML element is being spoken. It's also handy as a productivity tool, freeing your eyes to do other things while you listen to web pages being read to you.
I haven't posted much lately because work has been crazy with a capital K. I've been promoted to Manager of Programming and placed in charge of the Web Production team, where I still handle dynamic web site and application programming in addition to project management, and now dynamic print job compilation. In the last few months I've learned more about PDFs than I ever intended, as well as gotten my first exposure to using Quark XPress for production work. I've had to hire a new programmer/designer, and we're in the midst of hiring for a HTML coder position.
Since I've picked up the lead on all of our web projects, I've become aware of many issues that I hope to write about when time permits. Among them:
- Why you shouldn't perform OLE Automation tasks through web scripts (eg uploading Excel files to a CGI script that grabs data ranges and processes them)
- Using dynamic evaluation functions as a quick and dirty substitute for the ActiveRecord pattern
- Why performing multiple queries against Access databases in classic ASP through ADODB doesn't scale well, and how to improve performance as much as possible (see above)
- How to discover hidden .Net potential
Labels: accessibility, speech
posted by Adam Payne @ 11:08 PM
permalink
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home