News

In order to reach more visitors and inform them about the online services available, leading housing association Sanctuary Group has added BrowseAloud, a text-to-speech solution from Texthelp Systems Ltd.

Website visitors who speak English as their second language or have literacy difficulties, dyslexia, and mild visual impairments will now benefit from some of the key features of BrowseAloud which include: Dual Colour Highlighting, which makes text easier to follow; a Talking Dictionary; Text Magnification; MP3 output and nine international language options.

Kate Still, Sanctuary Group's director of community investment and involvement said: "The diversity of our website audience is wide and we believe it is vital that everyone has equal access to our services. We are delighted to be able to offer BrowseAloud, which will bring considerable benefits to those in need of this facility. It will make visiting our website a much easier experience."

BrowseAloud is provided free of charge to anyone who downloads the product. Users can choose to listen to a male or female voice and they can also listen to highlighted passages of text or whole pages being read aloud. Web visitors need only download the product once and then all websites on the internet that are BrowseAloud-friendly can be read aloud for free.

By speech enabling their website, Sanctuary Group has improved the online experience for many web visitors and will help them reach a greater percentage of the population who have difficulty reading and accessing online text.

BrowseAloud enabled sites within the housing market also include: Freebridge Community Housing, Walsall Housing Group, The Hyde Group, Cordale Housing and Waterloo Housing Association.

For more information on BrowseAloud contact Donna on d.thomson@browsealoud.com or 028 9442 8105. For further information on Sanctuary Group visit www.sanctuary-group.co.uk.