Wikispeech

For an in-dept description what this project will include, see Wikispeech/Pilot study.

The Wikispeech project aims to create an open source text-to-speech tool to make Wikimedia's projects more accessible for people that have difficulties reading for different reasons. Wikispeech is being developed so it can be used as a MediaWiki extension. The idea is that Wikispeech should be a server end solution so that anyone can use it without having to download anything (something that might not be possible if you are only borrowing the device used to access Internet). All components will of course be open source so that the work also can be included on other platforms. The Wikispeech extension will be built in a way that make it possible to add more and more languages and anyone interested can help to make the text-to-speech working better by improving the lexicon with new words, point out mistakes and so forth. During the initial part of the project, lasting from March 2015-September 2017 and financed by the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS), the necessary structures will be put in place and Wikispeech will be working in Swedish and English, and will be possible to use also in Arabic (a Right-to-left language).

Rational
With the help of navigation and recital using synthetic speech, people who find it easier to assimilate information through speech than text can get equal access to the information. In the long run the open nature of the project will make it possible to develop new ways of presenting the spoken information, e.g. through a player intended for mobile phones. This could include those with visual impairment, dyslexia or who are analfabets. The approximately 25% of people who find it easier to learn from spoken text could also utilise this functionality as well as those who wish to learn at the same time as they do something else (e.g. driving). 25% of the readers of Wikipedia would mean that approximately 115-125 million people would benefit from the project in the long run.

Those who have received a medical diagnosis regarding limitations in reading comprehension (e.g. dyslexia, visual impairment or cognitive impairment) often have access to technological aids. This however very often requires a diagnosis, that you live in a high income country and that the language you speak has working text-to-speech for this to be a solution to the accessibility problem. People with poor reading comprehension (from unaccustomed readers to analfabets) also have limited access to commercial tools even if this would improve their understanding. This is especially true if they do not wish to share their data with one of the IT behemoths. To conclude the assessment is that a very large group would benefit from built in text-to-speech on Wikipedia. Making all of the websites which use MediaWiki more accessible to those who find it hard to assimilate written information is therefore incredibly important.

The project will increase the accessibility of one of the most important websites. All other platforms using MediaWiki will be able to make use of the technical solutions which are developed during the project. That is several thousand websites which quick and easy will be able to activate text-to-speech.

Related pages
For more information on Wikispeech and its design process, see these directory pages: