You can now listen to Wealden District Council’s website, www.wealden.gov.uk and hear what the council is doing, thanks to the latest technology.
Browsealoud is software which can be downloaded free. It enables users to listen to all the written content on the Council’s award-winning website, so it becomes a speaking website.
“Using Browsealoud makes our web site much easier to understand for people with a mild visual impairment, low literacy and reading skills, dyslexia or people for whom English is not their first language,” said Councillor Norman Buck, Cabinet Member for Change Management. “It’s a great example of how new technology can help include more people in what the community is doing, rather than exclude them.”
Once Browsealoud has been activated on your computer, all you need to do is run the mouse over the text on the website, and Browsealoud will read back the contents to the viewer. The pitch, speed and volume of the reading voice can be customised for your own preferences and it can be also used to read other web sites that can use Browsealoud like the BBC.
Browsealoud can be downloaded from its own website, www.browselaloud.com or from the Wealden website, www.wealden.gov.uk
To help save council tax payers money, the speaking website has been a joint initiative between Wealden, Lewes and Rother District Councils.