Suggestion: Easier Speed Adjustment

[PastTenseOfDraw]

It would be great if adjusting the speed was easier.

Ideally being able to adjust the speed (up and down) through hotkeys as well as some buttons.

Sometimes you are reading things that are more complicated so you need to slow down whereas other times it's much easier so you can just speed through it. There also be presets but that would be more complicated.

[joelpurra]

@PastTenseOfDraw: sure, adjusting the speed using up/down buttons and/or hotkeys could be useful. Note that a good and useful implementation probably isn't as straightforward as it would seem at a glance.

• This would be a Talkie Premium feature.
• Text speed can only be set when starting to speak text, so adjusting speed would have to stop/restart speaking the text.
  • Not optimal, but somewhat alleviated by the text splitting workaround for a Google Chrome bug (Speech stops after 22-25 works spoken #1). Text reading could perhaps restart from the most recent text part.
  • The workaround adds short pauses while reading, so it is not enabled by default in Firefox.
  • A text part can start anywhere within the spoken text, so it might be better to try to adjust it to primarily split where a sentence starts/ends. Firefox could then use the same primary text splitting, as a pause between sentences is less intrusive.
  • Google Chrome would still need a workaround for longer sentences.
  • Note that Talkie's rudimentary "understanding" of what delimits sentences unfortunately does not work great for languages which do not end sentences with simple ASCII characters such as .!? This is because I am not familiar with such languages; perhaps there's already a library which includes "international" sentence splitting.
• Clicking Talkie's button in the browser toolbar stops the speech first, so having speed up/down buttons in the popup menu isn't great.
  • Could be combined adding a pause button (Pause #13) to the popup, meaning that speaking doesn't stop when clicking the toolbar button. This requires a bit more work though, but some functionality is shared.
  • It might be nice to show the current speed in the popup, next to the up/down buttons.
• When adjusting the speed, is the new speed temporary or should it be permanently saved to the current voice settings?
  • The easiest is to store the new speed permanently, since "temporary" is an arbitrary amount of time.
• Shortcut keys would need to know which voice to adjust speed for, in particular if using the shortcuts when no speech is playing.
  • The obvious choice is the most recently used voice. Hopefully most users do not switch languages/voices so often that it becomes confusing which voice the speed would be adjusted for.
  • The same is true for other up/down buttons, but they are usually placed within a stateful context/user interface already.
• How much should a click of an up/down button adjust the speed?
  • The speech rate range seems to only be defined in relative terms, and as far as I know there's no general well-defined maximum/minimum.
  • Some voices stop working then the rate is set too high/low, others revert to rate 1.
  • A fixed increment of, say, 0.1 "speed units" would be the easiest.
  • Presets are indeed more complicated, and perhaps a bit too rigid and/or configuration heavy.

I am considering creating a speech status tab in Talkie's options. It could have the same type of progress bar shown in the popup now, but also plenty of room for text/language/voice details, pause/up/down buttons, etcetera. I see this as a stepping-stone, and if it works out well it could also be implemented in the popup. Can, as usual, not give a timeline though. How does that sound?

[PastTenseOfDraw]

Text speed can only be set when starting to speak text, so adjusting speed would have to stop/restart speaking the text.

This or some sort of pause is fine. Being able to adjust it as mid-dictation would be nice but could be a future goal. It's more important that you don't have to dig into the settings to make adjustments and distribute any flow or focus you have.

It might be nice to show the current speed in the popup, next to the up/down buttons.

This would be helpful. It would mean you could quickly return to different speeds that you found helpful.

When adjusting the speed, is the new speed temporary or should it be permanently saved to the current voice settings?
The easiest is to store the new speed permanently, since "temporary" is an arbitrary amount of time.

I think storing as a new permanent would also be the most intuitive.

Shortcut keys would need to know which voice to adjust speed for, in particular if using the shortcuts when no speech is playing.
The obvious choice is the most recently used voice. Hopefully most users do not switch languages/voices so often that it becomes confusing which voice the speed would be adjusted for.
The same is true for other up/down buttons, but they are usually placed within a stateful context/user interface already.

The most recently used voice makes sense. I think most people would switch around voices until they find the one they like best and then stick with it. We could do a survey with these types of questions.

How much should a click of an up/down button adjust the speed?
From a quick survey of three apps on my phone Pocket, Google Podcasts, and Libby.

Pocket
Min Speed: 0.50x
Max Speed: 4.00x
Presets: none
Fine-tune +/- 0.1

Google Podcasts
Min Speed: 0.50x
Max Speed: 3.00x
Presets: 0.8, 1.0, 1.2, 1.5, 2.0
Fine-tune +/- 0.1

Libby
Min Speed: 0.60x
Max Speed: 3.00x
Presets: 1.00, 1.25, 1.50, 1.75, 2.00
Fine-tune +/- 0.05

The speech rate range seems to only be defined in relative terms, and as far as I know there's no general well-defined maximum/minimum.

Min /Min Speed of 0.50x of 4.00x seems reasonable. I know many blind users can listen to text faster than 4.00x but how many people can listen at a higher modifier than 4.00x and aren't using a screen reader.

Some voices stop working then the rate is set too high/low, others revert to rate 1.
A fixed increment of, say, 0.1 "speed units" would be the easiest.

This seems to be a good increment.

Presets are indeed more complicated, and perhaps a bit too rigid and/or configuration heavy.

They are nice to have but not a high priority.

I am considering creating a speech status tab in Talkie's options. It could have the same type of progress bar shown in the popup now, but also plenty of room for text/language/voice details, pause/up/down buttons, etcetera. I see this as a stepping-stone, and if it works out well it could also be implemented in the popup. Can, as usual, not give a timeline though. How does that sound?

This sounds good.