HeadApp reads the instructions, guiding information and feedback to you

Benefit

HeadApp speaks. Instructions and feedback are read to you when necessary. In this way, we help you to better and easier understand the task. Especially people with visual impairments benefit from this.

The voice output can be configured using the “Voice output” button in the main window where you can also select the therapy modules.

Einstellung Sprachausgabe
Activate or deactivate speak texts

You can decide whether HeadApp should read the texts aloud. To do this, you will find the “Speak texts” checkbox under Setup in the Patient data window.

Setup speech output for patients
Voices

If your computer has several narrators, the desired narrator can be selected here. On some devices, just one narrator is installed. These are missing the variety. If you don’t like this voice, you can manually install other voices.

HeadApp uses the Text-To-Speech technology. This means the text is converted into speech by the computer.

The quality of the voice generation can be different due to different devices. The type of installed narrator voices on the devices is, however, very crucial. Therefore, we recommend that you install a high-quality narrator voice when using HeadApp with patients.

Volume

Here, you can adjust the volume of the narrator’s voice. To disable the voice output, just move the slider to the left position.

Speed

The speech rate can be adapted to the needs of the user.

Specific features of different devices

PC (Windows and Mac)

A prerequisite for using the voice output is:

  • Windows: minimum Windows Version 7, installation of .NET 4.0 (or later)
  • Mac: minimum OSX Version 10.6

Voices with high quality can be found e.g. on the website of the provider NaturalReader.

Assistance for users of newer Windows versions

Smartphone and Tablet PC with Android

A prerequisite for using the voice output is the Android version 4.0.3 (API 15) or later.

The quality of the preset voice is mostly sufficient on Android devices. It is important to enable “Google Text-to-Speech“. Some manufacturers (e.g. Samsung) set their own voice.
To check whether the correct voice is set, follow these steps:

  • select the app settings on your device
  • menu “My Device”
  • menu “Input and Control” – “Language and Input”
  • menu “Language” – “Text-to-Speech-Settings”
  • here select “Google Text-to-Speech” as preferred TTS engine

Voices for Android with high quality are inexpensive. We recommend CereProc voices.

Search for CereProc in the Google Play Store. There you will find two high-quality voices for 0,69 $ each (status December 2017).

Apple iPhone and iPad

A prerequisite for using the voice output is iOS version 7.1 or later.

By default, a voice in moderate quality is installed on iOS devices. The quality of this voice can be improved by means of this guide.