Previous entry: "9-October-2001 -- The need for editors on the Web" WebWord Home Page Next entry: "10-October-2001 -- WebWord Toolbar for Internet Explorer"

10/10/2001 Archived Entry: "9-October-2001 -- WebWord Comment"

WebWord Comment -- For those people keeping track, Bagarashi.com is a real site. I'm floating it out for review and comments. I appreciate your feedback.

Replies: 9 comments

I liked the access to all your information. But I didn't care for the digitized cyborg playback- I expected John's voice! Guess I'm gullable.

I found tons of awesome articles that I didn't know were in the depths of webword and would have no idea how to get to. Like useit.com there is great info, but the designs do not support adequate access to this valuable information. I have had the same "wow- i didn't know this was in here" experience on both these sites. Both are trying to be simple, but are top heavy information rich sites. It's a shame that webword could be more graphically and architecturally pleasing in terms of these basic usability issues.

Posted by S.F. @ 10/10/2001 12:28 AM EST

I knew they were there :) I do have a problem accessing your archives though John, only the first one seems to work... Very annoying

Posted by Peter @ 10/10/2001 04:32 AM EST

Let me see...

1) Visit webword.com, go to article (30 seconds)

2) Read article (2 minutes)

Bonus: I can skip to parts I want.

Why would I want to wait 5-10 minutes for an MP3 file of the same article to download, only to listen to a robot read it out to me in an extremely annoying way? I'm not a sucker for punishment. :)

Posted by Madhu Menon @ 10/10/2001 10:31 AM EST

OK, I'm quoting from the "about us" section of Bagarashi.com (what on earth does "Bagarashi" mean?)

> Hear web pages.

Why would I want to do that? It's a lot faster to read. I don't ask for audio versions of magazines, so why would I want it for web pages?

> Download your favorite articles as MP3's.

I can just save them to my hard disk instead. It's a lot faster.

> Listen to them on your computer, in your car, or at the gym.

Listen to articles on usability in my car or gym? Seriously? I'd rather play me some Britney Spears :)

> Bagarashi is about convenience. > We save you time.

How is making me wait 10 minutes to download a 2.4 MB MP3 file of an article saving me time? As I've demonstrated in my first comment, it takes me 2.5 minutes to complete my task the old-fashioned way.

> We make web content more portable.

What exactly is more portable about an MP3 file? At the very least, I need an MP3 player. And HTML files are equally portable that way.

> We offer you a choice. You don't
>have to read everything on the
>web, you can listen to it.

Again, what benefit do I get from a cyborg voice reading out a serious article out to me in a monotonous, discontinuous way sans any emotion? I'd rather read articles. I can read them at my own pace that way.

>Bagarashi provides you with
>access to the best web content in
>a format that makes sense for
>your busy schedule. Bagarashi is

Busy schedule? I think I've ranted enough about waiting for my MP3 file to download. 'Nuff said.

(in best robot voice)

Danger, Will Robinson. This doesn't look like a very cool thing to me :))

Regards,

Madhu

Posted by Madhu Menon @ 10/10/2001 10:42 AM EST

Kudos for experimenting, but I don't think this is going to work.
Two thoughts:

* if I wanted a program to read me articles in a synthesized voice, then I would probably get the program myself so I could use it for ANY article, not just WebWord
articles.

* it sounds like it was generated with Festival, a free speech synthesis program created at the university of Edinburgh. It's distributed as source so you need to compile it. This is easy on unix/linux systems, but Windows users will need experience and patience.

Festival: http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival/

Still, kudos to you for continuing to try new things.

--karl

Posted by Karl @ 10/10/2001 12:35 PM EST

Personally, I think you will be sending the wrong 'image' by using a synthesised voice. The message you're sending (to me, at least) as that this project is not worth your own time (i.e. the time to record your own voice). If it is not worth your time, then it is not worth mine. As I said, this is the message I'm getting, whether that message is right or not, is another story.

But it is great that you're trying things out, especially with audio. The web in general is currently quite quiet, but audio is making in-roads. WildTakes and TalkAboutComics are good examples that I think WebWord should take a look at if you are interested in Audio presentation of content, as is KenRadio.

Cheers
Lyle

Posted by Lyle B. Højbjerg-Clarke @ 10/10/2001 01:46 PM EST

I'm simply not impressed with web audio, except with respect to specific-use streaming (ex: web radio) and specific interactive applications (ex: games). Any other time I encounter audio on a web site it is unexpected and makes me jump. If it occurs at work, it pisses me off.

Regarding articles in MP3 I just cannot envision a practical situation in which I would use them. Except one. If I were hospitalized without the use of my hand or eyes, then listening to the articles would be a godsend. I could spend the time debating web issues in my head... provided that someone burns the MP3s onto a CD for me and gets them playing.

Posted by JS @ 10/10/2001 08:00 PM EST

John,

The above comments are not nasty! Just the frank opinions of your intended audience...if people do not see the value at the testing stage that means that you have to do some serious re-thinking.

I appreciate your hard work!

Cheers!

p.s. All feedback is valuable!!

Posted by Varun @ 10/11/2001 05:01 AM EST

I think that text to speech is great for really short messages, something like reading aloud a SMS sent to a GSM when you are in your car.

There is also the fact that you can scan an article to find the content you need, audio is linear and it's hard to skip a paragraph with precision and you can't see if something interesting is far in the stream ...

If you want to make something great about usability and audio/video, maybe recording a user that think aloud and recording what he see on screen to stream usability studies on the web ... IMHO that would be interesting.

Posted by Frédéric @ 10/11/2001 03:42 PM EST

Subscribe to Webword.com
Receive the best free usability newsletter on the Internet.

URL: http://www.WebWord.com/weblog/