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✌ Improving Alexa’s Accessibility

✌ Improving Alexa’s Accessibility

Gestures and text-to-speech for the win.

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Improving Alexa’s Accessibility

Gesturing At Alexa

The next time you set a timer with Alexa, you won’t have to worry about repeatedly shouting, “Alexa, stop! Alexa….stop! Alexa….STOP!” when the timer goes off. Instead, you can simply show Alexa your palm and she’ll take the cue to stop making noise. Now, while Alexa might not care about being shown your palm, we would not recommend using this strategy with your significant other.

Being able to control Alexa with a gesture is currently only available when using a timer. However, knowing the speed at which Amazon implements updates, there are surely more gesture commands coming soon.

The gesture feature is currently available for the Echo Show and is part of Amazon’s initiative to make Alexa-powered devices usable for as many people as possible. In addition to using your palms to communicate with Alexa, you can also now have Alexa speak directly for you.

Tap To Alexa

Most people are familiar with the feature “speech-to-text”. This feature is common on smartphones or smart devices and allows you to speak directly to your device, which will notate your words into written text. Now, Amazon is incorporating the opposite feature into Alexa and calling it Tap To Alexa.

Using this feature, users will be able to type out words into their device and have Alexa speak them aloud. Additionally, users can use this feature to command Alexa by simply clicking buttons on the screen (as opposed to speaking out loud to Alexa).

On top of that, users can bunch commands together into shortcuts. For example, tapping the “Bedtime” command might turn off the lights, lock the doors, and adjust the temperature all at once.

Tap To Alexa is beneficial for people with speech disabilities or those who might want to use their Amazon devices to verbally communicate with others.

Alexa Accessibility

Amazon is not alone in its quest to make Alexa more accessible. In fact, most major voice assistant companies such as Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft have joined with the University of Illinois to form the Speech Accessibility Project.

The goal of this project is to help make voice assistants available to everyone, including those with disabilities that impact the senses such as Parkinson’s Disease, ALS, and others.

By expanding the number of ways that you can command Alexa, companies like Amazon are helping to bring the power of voice assistants to everyone.