[nfb-talk] Survey on Synthetic Speech for audio description

Michael Bullis mabullis at hotmail.com
Mon Feb 22 15:59:30 UTC 2010


February 19, 2010

Recruiting Now for a Survey on Synthesized Speech and Audio Description

IBM Research-Japan and WGBH's Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center
for Accessible Media (NCAM) are conducting a joint study via an online
survey on the applicability of speech synthesis for audio description of
Web-based video. 

Adults (18+ years of age) who are blind or have low vision will be asked to
share their opinions about a few short video clips which include synthesized
description. 

NCAM is seeking participants with a range of familiarity with synthesized
speech (from little or none to regular users) and as well as familiarity
with audio description (from little or none to regular users). 

Interested in sharing your opinion? Please send an email to access at wgbh.org
<http://wgbh.org/>  with "participate" in the subject line. Once the online
survey is posted on or about March 1, you will be sent an email with the
survey's Web site address and asked to complete the survey by Friday, March
12. The survey, which will be accessible via screen-reading software, should
take no longer than one half hour. 

NCAM will summarize and share the results of the survey once user opinions
are analyzed. 

NOTE: This is an early investigation into a subject many people who are
blind or have low-vision have asked about for many years. Though we are
conducting this study, WGBH does not intend to substitute synthesized speech
for human voices on the programs and movies we currently describe. Following
this narrow and limited initial study, further research will be required to
expand the scope of investigation into larger populations, other types of
media and other parameters. 

Thank again,

Mary

-- 
Mary Watkins
Director of Communications 
  and Outreach
Media Access Group at WGBH
One Guest Street
Boston, MA  02135
617 300-3700
mary_watkins at wgbh.org <http://wgbh.org/> 
access.wgbh.org <http://access.wgbh.org/> 

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