[Tex2002ans]

Here is another one of the Accessibility articles I enjoyed:

http://webaim.org/articles/visual/

I forgot to link it in a previous post. :P My favorite part is right in the beginning:

You mean I have a visual disability? Whenever I ask a large group of people whether or not they have a visual disability, very few of them answer that they do. Then I ask whether or not anyone uses any assistive technology to overcome their visual disability. Most people are unsure what I mean. Invariably, though, as I look out across the group, I see many of them, often a majority, using an assistive technology for their vision at that very moment.

"How many of you have perfect vision?" I ask. At this point, at least a couple of people catch on to what I am about to say. A voice in the audience says, "I wear glasses," "Yes," I say. "You wear glasses, and glasses are...?" "An assistive technology!" says someone in the audience, and that is exactly what they are.

We are all so accustomed to seeing people wear glasses or contact lenses that we do not think of poor vision as a disability. Scientists and inventors have developed corrective lenses to compensate for the deformities in the shape of our eyes, affording us the possibility of seeing with perfect, though somewhat artificial, vision. Many of us have natural vision so flawed that there is no question we would have a disability were it not for our glasses. Bad eyesight is so common, and it is so easy to correct with glasses, that we often forget how different our lives would be without this incredible technological device.

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

@jswolfe --- not a real-world example in the sense you mean, but I have created experimental projects where I set the <em> to be Large Red font, instead of *italic, and <strong> to Large BLUE font instead of *bold*.

Hmmm, I could also see Syntax Highlighting as being a semi-related issue. It easily allows you to skim through a work and spot oddities.

For example, if you are typing LaTeX using emacs+AUCTeX, it could look very colorful:

https://i.stack.imgur.com/YcNY2.png
http://www.blackhats.es/wordpress/wp...le.pdf_002.png

or even allow you to render Math inline:

https://www.gnu.org/software/auctex/...h-rendered.png

LyX is a WYSIWYM editor for LaTeX, and it can do similar:

http://www.lyx.org/images/about/main_window.png

Calibre's Editor currently displays words between <i>+<em> as an italic font and <b>+<strong> as a bold font... I see no reason why there couldn't be more colors/fonts/font-sizes/highlights or more complex differentiation at a future date.

Originally Posted by BetterRed

TTS Book reading should sound like its being read by a single person, one with the ability to adopt subtly different voices both in the narrative and dialogue. If you were to start using entirely different voices you would end up with a play with lot's of narration - it won't work.

Hmmm, I see what you mean. I was thinking more along the lines of a play:

Juliet. Good even to my ghostly confessor.

  Friar. Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both.

  Juliet. As much to him, else is his thanks too much.

  Romeo. Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy
    Be heap'd like mine, and that thy skill be more
    To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath
    This neighbour air, and let rich music's tongue
    Unfold the imagin'd happiness that both
    Receive in either by this dear encounter.

Juliet (Female 1), Friar (Male 1), Romeo (Male 2).

I didn't really consider your typical Fiction with narrative interspersed between dialog. I could see how the TTS might be very strange flipping between:

[Female Voice] "Oh no,"
[Narrator] she said,
[Female Voice] "what happened to your face?"
[Narrator] Joe put his hand up to his cheek.
[Male Voice] "I... I-I fell."
[Narrator] He chuckled as he stared at the ground.

I personally don't listen to any audiobooks to know how/if they would handle multiple readers.

But different TTS voices could be used if you had entire chapters written by different POV characters (like in A Song of Ice and Fire [italics], each chapter is written by a different main character). You could then have Chapter 1 (Male), Chapter 2 (Female), [...].