Text-to-Speech Audio Stream for Self-Service Accessibility
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Solution Overview
Problem
Customers with disabilities face difficulties using self-service systems like automated teller machines due to the lack of accessibility in text-based interfaces, which can hinder their ability to perform operations independently.
Innovation Solution
A self-service system that includes a communications module, processor, and memory to initiate a trusted session with a mobile device, convert text on the machine's display to a text-to-speech audio stream, and send it to the mobile device via a telephone call, allowing users to interact through voice commands and receive audio outputs, thereby facilitating accessibility for users with disabilities.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If a text-based interface is used in self-service systems, then the system can operate efficiently and provide information clearly, but customers with disabilities cannot access or interact with the system effectively
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a mobile device as an intermediary between the self-service system and the customer. The mobile device receives text from the self-service system, converts it to speech through text-to-speech conversion, and transmits it back to the customer. This intermediary approach enables accessibility for hearing-impaired or visually-impaired customers without requiring complex modifications to the core self-service system architecture.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the traditional visual/text-based interaction mechanism with an audio-based mechanism. Instead of customers reading text displays and pressing physical buttons, the system converts text to speech and enables voice command input. This substitution of interaction modality (from visual/mechanical to audio) resolves the accessibility issue while maintaining system functionality.
2Ease of operation
If text-to-speech conversion is implemented in the self-service system, then accessibility is improved, but the device complexity and processing requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the text-to-speech conversion function from the self-service system and relocates it to the customer's mobile device. The self-service system only needs to communicate text to the mobile device, while the mobile device handles the complex text-to-speech processing, audio output, and voice command recognition. This extraction reduces the processing burden on the self-service system while maintaining accessibility features.
Data Source
AI summary
A self-service system comprises a communications module; a processor coupled with the communications module; and a memory coupled to the processor and storing processor-executable instructions which, when executed by the processor, configure the processor to determine that a text-to-speech audio stream is to be sent to a mobile device; initiate a trusted session between the self-service system and the mobile device; engage a text-to-speech module to convert text displayed on a display screen of the self-service system to the text-to-speech audio stream; and send, via the communications module and to the mobile device, a signal that includes the text-to-speech audio stream.