Audio player with more accessibility features

AimeeStephens

Thank you for the presentation about Esri accessibility updates for the Forest Service today. It was wonderful to see all the improvements Esri is making towards accessibility.

This comment is specifically for the Audio Player that is now available in the ArcGIS StoryMap builder. If there are audio players in other apps, I think this would be useful for them as well.

We have many maps in our stories where data tables and Alt Text are not sufficient to describe them to users with various visual or cognitive disabilities. A longer description is often needed that would be too clunky or out of place to add as text within the main StoryMap. One idea I had would be to create a longer description, convert it to audio using a free site that converts text to speech like From Text to Speech, and then load the audio file to the audio player placed next to the map as in the screenshot below. To do so and comply with Section 508 requirements, we would also need a way to include a transcript of the audio.

I would love to see an audio player that allows you to load a transcript right into the player with a "Show Transcript" option for users. Other accessibility options like being able to adjust the speed would be a bonus. The Able Player is a customizable HTML5 media player. An example of an Able Player audio player can be seen at Able Player Audio Demo #4. I couldn't get the transcript to function properly, but I think it gives a good idea of what it should do. Below is a screenshot of the audio player.

Of course, we could just save the transcript as a PDF, host the file somewhere (not easy to do in the Forest Service), and provide a link to the PDF. That option isn't as slick and would take the user away from the StoryMap, which isn't ideal.

Thank you for your consideration of this idea.

CharmelMenzel · ‎06-23-2022

@AimeeStephensThanks for the kind words. @KlaraSchmitt and I enjoyed the discussion today. I'm so happy you posted to Esri Community. These are great suggestions to consider. I'm sharing with other Esri staff plus I hope the Esri Community chimes into this discussion.

OwenGeo · ‎06-23-2022

@AimeeStephens -- Thanks for posting this idea and providing some nice detail about how this feature would be used.

We don't have this on our list of priorities at the moment, but we can continue to watch this idea to see how much other interest it gets. In the meantime, here are some other things to think about:

The story builder currently has the ability to add alternative text to audio clips. There is no character limit to the alt text. Could this be used for your transcription? Anyone using a screen reader would have easy access to the audio transcription.
If you are somehow able to host your own version of the AblePlayer, that could be embedded within stories using the Embed block.
Remember that PDFs can be uploaded, hosted, and shared publicly as items in your ArcGIS Online content. Is that a possibility to make the PDF option you mentioned easier?

AimeeStephens · ‎06-24-2022

@OwenGeo

Thank you so much for those wonderful suggestions. I'll definitely look into them.

Using alt text to add the transcript would definitely help a lot of users. Not everyone that would benefit from a transcript would use a screen reader, but it's certainly a good option to consider.
I will definitely look into seeing if we can create an AblePlayer and then embed it.
I did not know that PDFs can be added to AGOL content except for in StoryMap Collections. That might help solve several of our other issues, like providing alternate versions (tables) for all our charts.