Integrating speech and nonspeech sounds in interfaces for blind users

Abstract

Synthetic speech is widely used by blind people to enable them to receive textual output from computer systems. Used appropriately, speech provides a reasonably high level of access to command-line systems such as DOS and Unix, and forms the basis of many attempts to adapt graphical user interfaces. However, while current speech adaptations succeed in providing a basic level of access to textual computer output, they do not provide blind users with the same level of usability enjoyed by sighted people using a visual display.