An app that has accessibility features for people with disabilities
Otter Voice Meeting Notes is an example of a possible assistive technology app/online service. It transcribes speech to text in real-time using artificial intelligence and offers superior accuracy than what people are accustomed to using similar services on their digital devices.
While Otter wasn’t intended for use by people with disabilities it has received considerable praise by many deaf and hard of hearing people. Others who may gain some benefit from using Otter include anyone who for whatever reason have trouble taking notes due to physical or mental disorders. It may also have some applicability to people with speech impediments.
Applicability for the deaf & hoh
I have tested it’s speech-to-text function and have been impressed with its accuracy. An example of this is an almost perfect transcription of non-captioned YouTube videos; it works better than Google’s Transcribe. I also believe it can be used to transcribe in-coming telephone calls and I am trying to rig-up a procedure that will send the callers voice to my mobile/tablet running Otter; I need to do more work on this.
Perhaps a feature for the speech impaired.
At the end of the recording session, a complete transcription is available for editing and sharing. The completed session can also be played back as a sound file. So, someone at home could input a prepared text exercise and then see and hear his/her results, even repeat the exercise as necessary. I haven’t tested this feature and am only suggesting this as a possibility.
More Information about Otter
The app is available for Android and IOS devices and will also run on the Chrome browser in a Windows or Mac notebook/desktop setting. There are two versions, the Free version, and the Premium service. The free version gives you 600 minutes of transcription per month and many other features. The premium version gives you 6,000 minutes of transcription per month, bulk export, and more playback options.
Full details can be found on the Otter web site: https://otter.ai/