What do users think of \'Heather\' the Scottish voice?

Posted by 14 on the 1st July, 2013

Take a few minutes to listen to this lovely BBC interview with Eilidh, a young lass who uses a communication aid. As well as hearing from Eilidh, the interview also showcases a very thoughtful Mum, and 'Heather' the great Scottish voice distributed by CALL Scotland. 

The interview is thought-provoking in many ways. Eilidh did really well, to manage to get a word in edgeways across the conversation going on.  And apparently there was little time to prepare, so Eilidh's responses were not pre-prepared but generated on the spot. The interview also underlined how the quality of synthetic voices is so much higher - and therefore so are our expectations of them - than just a few years ago. 

Eilidh's Mum now tells me that since the interview, Eilidh has reflected that she does not think of Heather as her own voice (she's already got her own voice!) but as 'the computer's voice' (the one she likes best).

Lots of positive praise for the Heather voice, in the interview. But also some criticism of Heather's 'diction'  - which, by the way, we'll be looking into, as CALL has undertaken to feed back to CereProc, the developers, any problems that arise. First step is to make sure any device has the latest version of the voice installed. Speak to Robert at CALL if you're not sure.