BrowseAloud Makes Orangeville's Website Talk
To make public information more accessible to residents, the Town of Orangeville has recently added BrowseAloud to its website.
Online, June 30, 2011 (Newswire.com) - The program, which reads web content out loud to users, will ensure that the website is easier to navigate for those in need of reading assistance.
The addition of BrowseAloud to the Town's website will be a great help in improving access to information for everyone, says Councillor Gail Campbell who chairs the Orangeville Accessibility Committee. "The committee is delighted to announce this important and progressive initiative to increase accessibility and make our community more barrier-free. BrowseAloud is a service that allows all citizens, including those with mild visual impairments, dyslexia, literacy issues and English as a second language to have better access to the Town's website. The service enhances the access everyone should have to municipal information."
BrowseAloud reads web pages aloud for people who find it difficult to read online. Reading large amounts of text on screen can be difficult for those with literacy and visual impairments. As users highlight website content, the content is spoken aloud. Users get to pick the voice, language, and method of highlighting.
The BrowseAloud program has many useful features. In addition to reading web content aloud, the program also features text highlighting and text magnification, along with a dictionary function, a translator function, a screen masking tool, and MP3 maker that allows you to save text as an MP3 file.
The use of BrowseAloud requires a one-time download by the user, with instructions provided on the Town of Orangeville website. Once the software is installed, everything on the website can be heard simply by moving the cursor over the text you want to have read to you. Alternatively, you can highlight the text you want to hear and click on "play". BrowseAloud is free of charge to the end user and the Accessibility Committee will pay an annual fee to have the website BrowseAloud-enabled.
To access the new BrowseAloud feature, visit www.orangeville.ca and click on the BrowseAloud logo on the right-hand side of the home page.
For more information about BrowseAloud, contact:
Samantha Corr
T: 877 778 6977
E: [email protected]
W: www.browsealoud.com
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Tags: accessibility, disability, Software, technology, text to speech
