Normally, reading ability and comprehension is required to engage with a number of services, particularly online ones such as shopping websites, blogs, social media, and more. What this can mean however is that users without the ability to properly read are often left out from being able to participate and utilize these services.
What the Options Are
With the increased stability, speed, and quality of text to speech technology, however, many industries around the world are starting to leverage the tools that make engagement with these consumers possible, providing it as an integral part of their accessibility options on their products. Consumers and business owners have benefited from using text-to-speech services on devices and platforms, and with online services providing these features as well.
More and more businesses are seeing the value of integrating this accessibility into their infrastructure as customers speak positively about the ease of use and reliability of these services. These options are able to translate text into various different languages, voices, speaking styles, tones, and include sounds that are realistic and lifelike, in addition to sounds that are robotic to convey meaning directly and quickly.
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In fields like healthcare, these services go from a convenience to a necessity for certain users, making it so that individuals without the proper reading skills can learn necessary information themselves in emergency cases. In education, these services are utilized to help children develop the proper reading skills by giving them a point of comparison from their own reading to see if they are pronouncing words right or helping them learn more difficult ones.
Where to Find Them
Many mobile devices and online services have incorporated text-to-speech services to improve the customer experience. For example, iPhone users can use “Speak Selection”. This option allows you to read the contents of your phone screen and hear the text you type yourself. Android phones such as Galaxy have a talkback option that has similar options.
These features are very useful for users who find their phone screen too small to read the text and aren’t able to make full use of their phone’s features. Windows PC users can find accessibility tools such as this in the Ease of Access menu. The narrator is one option that reads the text on the user’s screen. For all users, online services that allow for converting text to audio are usable as well.
Since these services and tools are now more widespread, they have become a common feature in the daily life of many consumers and are essential for blind or visually impaired users.
Over time, technological innovations in the text to speech services will lead more and more industries to creatively apply this technology. In addition to the industries mentioned, this technology has already provided positive results for the businesses and customers it serves as applications of users have increased.
This technology can be used publicly without restrictions, so anyone can convert any kind of text to speech. Since reading is tied to so many activities we do, it can help open the door for new hobbies like reading books or helping users multitask while working.
