Let your content speak for itself

Session description

Let your users choose how they want to consume your content by giving them the option to have the content read to them out loud or translated into another language for audio or video consumption. Do your eyes ever get tired of small grey font on cream backgrounds and wish you could just have the content read to you? Do you ever find or consume content that is not in your native language and wish you could have a reliable translation? This talk is for those interested in Usability and Accessibility. Usability is about giving users options in how they want to consume content. Accessibility is not just for those with diagnosed disabilities, but also for those who have trouble consuming content for any number of reasons and would use assistance if it were available.

This session will show you how to use the Amazon Polly for WordPress plugin to integrate Amazon's text-to-speech service. This session will cover more than just how to install the plugin, but will also cover creating an AWS account, setting up required AWS services such as Polly and S3 storage, and obtaining the API keys to enable the plugin. We will then cover the features of the plugin and such considerations as choosing voices and how to use lexicons and SSML (Speech Synthesis Markup Language) tags to control aspects of speech to optimize translation and pronunciation of your content. Live demonstration will be provided for key steps.