Forum Discussion
Text-to-speech in Rise 360
Hello everyone, please how can i add text-to-speech in rise 360?
I need to ask this. Why do people want text-to-speech? What is the use case scenario? How would it enhance learning?
It's for accessibility purposes. If you have visually impaired learners, or learners whose first language is not English, having an audio functionality is imperative. This is also why most websites now, or news articles have a "listen to this article" feature at the top. It's for accessibility purposes so that everyone can consume your content.
I've done extensive testing with learners who have visual impairments. All of them used JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, Dragon Speaking Naturally or another app. None of them ever requested that there was a built in TTS. Screen readers provide much more than just TTS.
I'm not sure about learners who first language is not English. I find it easier to read in another language when I'm learning it because then I can go at my speed and look up words that I don't know.Accessibility is one reason, but there are other reasons that it is helpful. That said, it depends on what the audio actually is. Wall of text with verbatim narration? Overloads the learner and ineffective. Reduced text, graphics, images and audio explaining providing more context to the text and images? Learners retain more information than text alone. This article is a good, quick read: Effectively Use Audio to Enhance E-Learning (td.org), as well as this prior Articulate Community discussion. Is using voiceover adding any value to e-learning? - Building Better Courses Discussions - E-Learning Heroes (articulate.com)
I completely understand and support that audio is required for learners with disabilities and visual impairments, ESL, etc.
For our audience, based on the nature type of work that they do, cannot have physical disabilities like visual impairments.
Based on student surveys and testing, almost without exception, our specific audience prefers not to use audio, as "audio slows down" their learning process. This refers to audio narrations of screen text and would likely include text-to-speech.
Our content is not available to a general audience.
As Andree-Anne stated, it can be used for accessibility but also, instead of having to record narrative after narrative, you can just type what you want to say one time and move on with your project. The audio is generally much cleaner than recordings and CC may be off with recordings but with crisp text-to-speech, CC is more likely to be correct.
