Standards Development

Scope

This PAS provides recommendations for the design of products and services to be vocally accessible to people with diverse needs and abilities, including those who:

a)    consume and control vocal content and content bundled with vocal content;

b)    interact with devices and services by voice;

c)     seek information by voice;

d)    structure and arrange environments⁵⁾ where vocal services or related services, such as alternatives to vocal, are involved; and/or

e)    commission products, services and environments.

f)       any combination(s) of a) to e).

It covers the use of diverse languages and dialects, and fairness to consumers using diverse languages and dialects. While this PAS is not intended to cover the use of sound other than vocal sound, there are needs that apply both to vocal environments and other sound environments, and there is a degree of overlap. Additionally, many systems deliver media or offer control mechanisms that can involve diverse modalities that include the vocal, so the standard gives some recommendations for such systems.

The PAS gives recommendations for:

1)    how vocal accessibility is addressed when a voice-related service is designed or delivered;

2)    mitigation measures to prevent societal exclusion potentially arising from limitations of voice recognition services; and

3)    addressing the challenges for individuals with “non-standard” voices, impaired speech and different accents, as well as non-native language speakers.

This PAS also gives recommendations for the documentation of user needs for accessibility, particularly but not exclusively related to vocality, addressed by a product, service or system or required by a commissioning or procurement process. The position the standard takes is that many systems need to handle multimodality, by conversion or translation from one modality to another or by selection of modality, in order to deliver an optimal personalized experience to each individual user.

By taking a user needs approach, this standard provides both a general approach supporting needs that are often not met optimally by systems, products and services, and also provides critical support for a wide range of disabilities, including visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, language, learning, and neurological, as well as support for individuals with changing abilities due to aging or other causes.

This PAS does not cover:

i)       systems with no potential for delivering vocal content or control (e.g. medical devices supporting vision improvement)⁶⁾;

ii)     technical aspects of voice recording and/or speech capture; or

iii)    data standards for the storage and transmission of speech.

This PAS is intended for:

•       product or service designers;

•       commissioners of products, services, systems or environments;

•       implementors of vocal systems, including interface designers;

•       management and policy implementers;

•       event designers and organizers; and

•       organizations that:

         •       supply and maintain voice-activated services;

         •       design and manufacture voice-related technology, including software;

         •       provide voice-activated services or who take content from voice-operated services; and

         •       specialize in design and usability of services.

The PAS might also be of interest to:

•        consumer groups;

•        accessibility and disability advocacy groups; and

•        organizations and academics with expertise in inclusive design.