Addressing concerns about CSS Speech
Léonie Watson (better known online as Tink) writes about CSS Speech. In dai11y 25/11/2022, I covered Léonie making the case for CSS Speech. In this latest article, Léonie specifically addresses concerns raised by the community.
People who use screen readers are worried that CSS Speech could make their experience worse, not better. They’re currently in control of the volume and speed of the speech, and are worried that giving developers influence over this could make content more difficult to understand.
Léonie points out that the use case for CSS Speech is wider than just assistive technologies, and encompasses things like reader (read aloud) capability in browsers. With the wider audience, the default speech speed is likely to be too slow for the typical screen reader user.
Screen readers “have shortcuts that let you change the rate of speech on the fly”, which Léonie claims screen readers often use already, e.g. slowing down the speech when reading a document that requires closer attention, before reverting back to normal speed.
Moreover, Léonie quotes the CSS Speech module with regards to volume: values of x-loud vs x-soft are not intended to be dramatic or uncomfortable, but relative to your current volume level. There is an outstanding concern that the proposal allows a ‘Decibel offset’ from the chosen keyword, which could lead to more extreme volume changes, but Léonie argues this option could be removed or refined further in the specification.
The “ultimate safeguard” is to ignore CSS Speech altogether, which will be possible in the same way as users can currently disable CSS globally. This isn’t ideal as not all screen reader users are blind and thus retaining visual styles is important.
The article ends with some synthesised speech samples that demonstrate the potential benefits of the module. It would be possible to configure things like news headlines to read with more impact, and the date of the news story to be announced in a more subdued manner. Listen to the demo.
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