Technical Communication UK 20th – 22nd September, 2011 The Oxford Belfry, Thame

Matthew Ellison

Speak out! Narrate your way to success

matthew@uaeurope.com

Who am I?

• Technical Director of UA Europe conference

• User Assistance specialist

• Trainer/consultant in User Assistance and eLearning

• Voiceover professional

• Amateur actor

What will we cover today?

• When is voiceover narration appropriate?

• Why should you use it?

• Guidance on recording voiceover narration

• Pros and cons of simulated voiceovers (Text-To-Speech)

• Guidance on using Text-To-Speech

Sample applications

• Adobe Captivate 5.5

• SpeechOver Professional 4.0

• Recording

• Closed Captions

• Text-To-Speech (TTS)

Voice characteristics

• Expression/tone/accent/personality

Question: Is voice “better” than text?

• Fixed paced (real time experience)

When is voiceover narration appropriate?

• Information accompanies real-time media: • Video

• Animation

• Demo

• Entertainment (Performance)

• Multi-tasking

Why use voiceover narration?

• Is voiceover better than text captions? • Yes!

• Demo + audio is more effective than Demo + text

Mayer (2005c)

What about accessibility?

• User can’t hear the voiceover

• Use optional subtitles (closed captions)

What can go wrong?

• Poor recording equipment and/or environment

• Poor delivery: lack of expression, inappropriate accent, wrong pace

Choosing a microphone

• USB connection to computer

• Cardioid pick-up area

• Condenser • Better sound quality

• Less robust

Invest in a Pop Filter

• No pop filter

• With pop filter

Choosing an environment

• No background noise

• Small room or enclosed area

• “Soft” walls

Tips for making your voice more engaging

• Vary your pitch, pace, and inflexion

• Smile (but don’t sound as though you are suppressing a laugh)

• Speak to an individual

• Recording in short chunks

Recording audio in Captivate 5.5

Text-to-Speech (TTS)

• Rapid developments over last 3-4 years

• Concatenative synthesis

• Many different voices and accents now available

Text-to-Speech (TTS)

Application

TTS Engine

Quality criteria for TTS voices

• Naturalness

• Intelligibility

See what you think: • http://www.nuance.com/vocalizer5/flash/index.html

• https://acapela-box.com/AcaBox/index.php

Comparing Human Voice and TTS

• TTS lacks the subtle nuances and variety of expression used by a real human voice

Comparing Human Voice and TTS

Text on Screen No voiceover

Text-to-Speech Narration

Human Narration In-House

Human Narration Professional

Lowest Cost Fastest Easy to Change Least Hassle

Highest Cost Slowest Hard to Change Most Hassle

Tony Karrer , 2010

TTS for Adobe Captivate 5.5

• Microsoft Sam or Anna (US)

• NeoSpeech: • Paul (US)

• Kate (US)

• Loquendo • Simon (British)

• Juliette (French)

• Stefan (German)

• Additional voices can be purchases • Acapela, AT&T Natural Voices, Cepstral, Nuance, and others

Adding TTS in Captivate

Adding TTS in Captivate

Fine-tuning TTS pronunciation and prosody

• Good punctuation

• Phonetic spelling

• Mark-up languages

• Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML)

• VoiceText™ Markup Language (VTML)

Fine-tuning TTS pronunciation and prosody

• Loquendo mark-up controls http://www.loquendo.com/en/demo-center/interactive-tts-demo/

Fine-tuning TTS pronunciation and prosody

Fine-tuning TTS pronunciation and prosody

• Pronunciation Editor for Adobe Captivate 5.5 TTS (NeoSpeech voices only)

• For more information, see tinyurl.com/6397ose

Final tips for voiceover narration

• Recording demo in real time (full-motion video): • record narration as you record demo

• Recording demo as screenshots: • add narration later

• Always write a script

• Use shorter sentences and more informal language than you would for written text

• Use Text-to-Speech for first draft

• Ideally use a human voice for final version

References and further reading

• Mayer, R E (2005c). Principles for managing essential processing in multimedia learning: Segmenting, pretraining, and modality principles. In R.E. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of multimedia learning (pp. 147-158). New York: Cambridge University Press

• e-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning, Ruth C. Clark and Richard E. Mayer, 2nd edition (2007)

• Tony Karrer’s eLearning Technology blog: Text to Speech, http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2009/05/text-to-speech.html

• Want to Create Engaging Screencasts? TechSmith, http://tinyurl.com/2ertj6v

• Matthew’s blog on Adobe Captivate, http://blogs.highlander.co.uk/tag/captivate/