Audiotexts Dorian Miller

Power of the written word Access when… –Blind –Weak readers –Inconvenient to read paper

Premise for Audiotext MP3 player –Open question what is the ideal interface? Academic papers –Structured documents Principles –Consider how paper is read and written

Comprehension Skim academic paper for overview Provide overview (Common writing technique) Active listening technique –Recording for Blind and Dyslexic (RFBD) –Books on tape

Audiotext divided into tracks Title Author information Abstract 1. Section heading …. N. Section heading 1. Section complete text …. N. Section complete text Overview Full content

Convey structure Structure implicit in page layout Annotations –Keywords –Voice characteristics –Beeps between paragraphs Section Some people must be provided with alternative access to the power of the written word. The blind are unable to read conventional books. People with dyslexia or other reading disabilities have trouble efficiently decoding the written word. Even people without a disability could benefit from an alternative to reading material; for example, when riding the bus, instead of reading they could listen to the text, as an audiotext. A computer system enables a person to access audiotexts, which give similar information as from reading conventional books. beep Audio versions of text must provide a literal reading and also convey the text’s structure. Text structure conveys meaning. Comprehension of writing comes from understanding a series of independent consecutive points. Sections or chapters represent different parts of a document’s main idea. Furthermore paragraphs are sub-points of the idea expressed in a section. In printed material, the format of section headings and whitespace between paragraphs implicitly indicates the transition between individual ideas. Similar format information must also be conveyed in audiotexts. beep

Structure of formulas Aster, TV Raman Example subscripts –sec2-ex5.ausec2-ex5.au

Reading team Separate reading voice for every section Continuous feedback about current section IntroductionRelated WorkExperimentDiscussion

MP3 practical Have to pick a device with interface Affordable Versatile

Design Automatically convert text to audio Python Input PDF Output MP3 PDF-2-HTML HTML Parser MS TTS Lame wav-mp3 converter

Hardest part Most difficult is format extraction from flat file representation –Introduction section heading Latex strict structure but not widely distributed

Evaluation Objective person comprehend paper –Compare blind and sighted –Secondary aid improve comprehension –Navigation – how often make mistakes

Questions