I worked with a blind dev for years and he mostly used the command line.
He said, this is the only real accessible interface where you get 100% control.
Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute
51–60 of 109 posts
Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute
#52On a related note, I wish Youtube had an option to play a video faster than 2X (other then downloading the video to play in a local viewer like VLC). Even as a sighted individual, listening to conference talks at high speed is convenient (and you can still pause if you want to look deeper into something).
There's a chrome plugin called video speed controller that can speed up any html5 video (including YouTube, vimeo, etc) to whatever speed you want. It's great!
Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. without reopening the article, I thought one was Finnish read with an English accent. This was due to what the author had grown accustomed. In his youth screen readers did not have as many options?
I think it was the opposite - English read with a Finnish accent.
It's not just an accent. It's reading the words as if they were Finnish, so totally different.
Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute
#54> 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…
Yes, actually, having worked in speech synthesis for a while I was surprised to find that's how frequent users generally do use it. Although IIRC 450wpm is still on the high side - I think maybe 2-300wpm was more common, albeit that's still pretty unintelligible to most of us. I imagine maybe he can distinguish higher speech rates using quality headphones than coming from, say, a phone speaker though.
Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute
#55On a related note, I wish Youtube had an option to play a video faster than 2X (other then downloading the video to play in a local viewer like VLC). Even as a sighted individual, listening to conference talks at high speed is convenient (and you can still pause if you want to look deeper into something).
I have the same wish. Though not ideal, you can work around it in the console quite easily:
document.querySelector('video').playbackRate = 3
Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute
#56I would totally put a screen on his desk hooked up to a separate computer that just displays nonsense so that people who don't know that he's blind think he's just hanging out in the office watching the entirety of strawberry shortcake or something.
Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute
#57I would totally put a screen on his desk hooked up to a separate computer that just displays nonsense so that people who don't know that he's blind think he's just hanging out in the office watching the entirety of strawberry shortcake or something.
Totally should have The Matrix screensaver playing at all times.
Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute
#58450 wpm. I can't even descipher 2 words out of that. It is amazing if he can understand that fast. Did his brain just rewire the visual cortex to process audio?
Makes me wonder what a human would be with double the neurons in the brain.
Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute
#59> 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…
You work your way up to it. Open up a podcast app and start listening at 1.5x. After a while (days to weeks), that becomes comfortable. Then work your way up to 2.0x. Once you're at that point, listening to familiar shows (familiar people/voices), at 1.0x makes them sound drunk. They seem. to. speak. so. slooow. Some podcasts I listen at 3x which feels near my limit of comfort (comprehension drops off at speeds highe…
I pretty routinely listen to podcasts and audiobooks at 2-2.5x, and I could understand the English audio just fine. Not sure that I'd _want_ to listen to it that quickly, but I can understand why if that were your interface with your computer that you would.
Re: Software development and screen readers at 450 words per minute
#60450 wpm. I can't even descipher 2 words out of that. It is amazing if he can understand that fast. Did his brain just rewire the visual cortex to process audio? Makes me wonder what a human would be with double the neurons in the brain.
The use of the visual cortex for audio is a theory: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-can-some-blin...