Live data from Hacker News

Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute

vincit.fi

1–10 of 109 posts

Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute

#4
its about coding for a blind person

but under what circumstance would typing speed really matter? most of my coding is a creative process with tons of autocomplete via the IDE, as well as copy and paste for boilerplate that can't be inherited

Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute

#5
> A screen reader intercepts what's happening on the screen and presents that information via braille (through a separate braille display) or synthetic speech. And it's not the kind of synthetic speech you hear in today's smart assistants. I use a robotic-sounding voice which speaks at around 450 words per minute.

After listening to the English sample....maybe I'm being naive but is it typical to be able to understand computer speech at that rate? I could barely make out a handful of words and probably wouldn't have believed there was a text to understand in there if the words weren't above it.

Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute

#6

> A screen reader intercepts what's happening on the screen and presents that information via braille (through a separate braille display) or synthetic speech. And it's not the kind of synthetic speech you hear in today's smart assistants. I use a robotic-sounding voice which speaks at around 450 words per minute. After listening to the English sample....maybe I'm being naive but is it typical to be able to understan…

The speech becomes surprisingly clear if you listen to it and read the paragraph at the same time.

Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute

#7

its about coding for a blind person but under what circumstance would typing speed really matter? most of my coding is a creative process with tons of autocomplete via the IDE, as well as copy and paste for boilerplate that can't be inherited

Check out the audio he presents in the article. His screen reader reads him text at 450words per minute.

I wonder how quickly he can finish reading non-technical books.

Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute

#8

its about coding for a blind person but under what circumstance would typing speed really matter? most of my coding is a creative process with tons of autocomplete via the IDE, as well as copy and paste for boilerplate that can't be inherited

The 450 words is not about the typing speed, but about the speed of his screen readers (reading to him 450 words a minute)

Check out the samples he gave, it's pretty impressive that he is able to understand anything

Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute

#9

its about coding for a blind person but under what circumstance would typing speed really matter? most of my coding is a creative process with tons of autocomplete via the IDE, as well as copy and paste for boilerplate that can't be inherited

How to spot the guy that didn't read the article.
Post reply on HN