Aural media is a kind of media that is designed to be perceived by the user’s ears. CSS allows a given document to be rendered or delivered through the use of speech synthesizer. This is done by attaching sound style elements to document elements.

Aural media and the capacity of CSS allow rendering documents using aural means bridges content with the visually impaired users.
Common contexts when aural media can be very useful are: learning to read, training, web access in vehicles, home entertainment, industrial documentation and many others.
When using aural properties, the canvas consists of a three-dimensional physical space (sound surrounds) and a temporal space (one may specify sounds before, during, and after other sounds).
A example is provided below for your reference.

<style tyle=”text/css”>
<!–
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {
voice-family: paul;
stress: 20;
richness: 90;
cue-before: url(”ping.au”)
}
p.heidi { azimuth: center-left }
p.peter { azimuth: right }
–>
</style>

This will direct the speech synthesizer to speak headers in a voice (a kind of audio font) called “paul”, on a flat tone, but in a very rich voice. Before speaking the headers, a sound sample will be played from the given URL.
Paragraphs with class heidi will appear to come from front left (if the sound system is capable of spatial audio), and paragraphs of class peter from the right.
Properties relevant to our discussion are: The azimuth property sets where the sound should come from horizontally.

• The elevation property sets where the sound should come from vertically.
• The cue-afterspecifies a sound to be played after speaking an element’s content to delimit it from other.
• The cue-before specifies a sound to be played before speaking an element’s content to delimit it from other.
• The cue is a shorthand for setting cue-before and cue-after
• The pause-after specifies a pause to be observed after speaking an element’s content.
• The pause-before specifies a pause to be observed before speaking an element’s content.
• The pause is a shorthand for setting pause-before and pause-after.
• The pitch specifies the average pitch (a frequency) of the speaking voice.
• The pitch-range specifies variation in average pitch.
• The play-during specifies a sound to be played as a background while an element’s content is spoken.
• The richness specifies the richness, or brightness, of the speaking voice.
• The speak specifies whether text will be rendered aurally and if so, in what manner.
• The speak-numeral controls how numerals are spoken.
• The speak-punctuation specifies how punctuation is spoken.
• The speech-rate specifies the speaking rate.
• The stress specifies the height of “local peaks” in the intonation contour of a voice.
• The voice-family specifies prioritized list of voice family names.
• The volume refers to the median volume of the voice.

The properties listed above will be elaborately discussed in my upcoming posts. So, if you want to know more about aural media, make sure you pay this site a visit.

Tags: What is the so called aural media?