From a presentation delivered by Matthew Ellison at Technical Communication UK 2011

1. Speak out!
Narrate your way to success
Matthew Ellison
matthew@uaeurope.com
Technical Communication UK
20th – 22nd September, 2011
The Oxford Belfry, Thame

2. Who am I?
• Technical Director of UA Europe conference
• User Assistance specialist
• Trainer/consultant in User Assistance and eLearning
• Voiceover professional
• Amateur actor

3. What will we cover today?
• When is voiceover narration appropriate?
• Why should you use it?
• Guidance on recording voiceover narration
• Pros and cons of simulated voiceovers (Text-To-
Speech)
• Guidance on using Text-To-Speech

4. Sample applications
• Adobe Captivate 5.5
• SpeechOver Professional 4.0
• Recording
• Closed Captions
• Text-To-Speech (TTS)

5. Voice characteristics
• Expression/tone/accent/personality
Question:
Is voice “better” than text?
• Fixed paced (real time experience)

6. When is voiceover narration appropriate?
• Information accompanies real-time media:
• Video
• Animation
• Demo
• Entertainment (Performance)
• Multi-tasking

7. Why use voiceover narration?
• Is voiceover better than text captions?
• Yes!
• Demo + audio
is more effective than
Demo + text
Mayer (2005c)

8. What about accessibility?
• User can’t hear the voiceover
• Use optional subtitles (closed captions)

9. What can go wrong?
• Poor recording equipment and/or environment
• Poor delivery: lack of expression, inappropriate
accent, wrong pace

10. Choosing a microphone
• USB connection to computer
• Cardioid pick-up area
• Condenser
• Better sound quality
• Less robust

11. Invest in a Pop Filter
• No pop filter
• With pop filter

12. Choosing an environment
• No background noise
• Small room or enclosed area
• “Soft” walls

13. Tips for making your voice more engaging
• Vary your pitch, pace, and inflexion
• Smile (but don’t sound as though you are
suppressing a laugh)
• Speak to an individual
• Recording in short chunks

14. Recording audio in Captivate 5.5

15. Text-to-Speech (TTS)
• Rapid developments over last 3-4 years
• Concatenative synthesis
• Many different voices and accents now available

16. Text-to-Speech (TTS)
Application
TTS Engine

17. Quality criteria for TTS voices
• Naturalness
• Intelligibility
See what you think:
• http://www.nuance.com/vocalizer5/flash/index.html
• https://acapela-box.com/AcaBox/index.php

18. Comparing Human Voice and TTS
• TTS lacks the subtle nuances and variety of expression
used by a real human voice

19. Comparing Human Voice and TTS
Text on Screen Text-to-Speech Human Narration Human Narration
No voiceover Narration In-House Professional
Lowest Cost Highest Cost
Fastest Slowest
Easy to Change Hard to Change
Least Hassle Most Hassle
Tony Karrer , 2010

20. TTS for Adobe Captivate 5.5
• Microsoft Sam or Anna (US)
• NeoSpeech:
• Paul (US)
• Kate (US)
• Loquendo
• Simon (British)
• Juliette (French)
• Stefan (German)
• Additional voices can be purchases
• Acapela, AT&T Natural Voices, Cepstral, Nuance, and others

21. Adding TTS in Captivate

22. Adding TTS in Captivate

23. Fine-tuning TTS pronunciation and prosody
• Good punctuation
• Phonetic spelling
• Mark-up languages
• Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML)
• VoiceText™ Markup Language (VTML)

24. Fine-tuning TTS pronunciation and prosody
• Loquendo mark-up controls
http://www.loquendo.com/en/demo-
center/interactive-tts-demo/

25. Fine-tuning TTS pronunciation and prosody

26. Fine-tuning TTS pronunciation and prosody
• Pronunciation Editor for
Adobe Captivate 5.5 TTS
(NeoSpeech voices only)
• For more information,
see tinyurl.com/6397ose

27. Final tips for voiceover narration
• Recording demo in real time (full-motion video):
• record narration as you record demo
• Recording demo as screenshots:
• add narration later
• Always write a script
• Use shorter sentences and more informal language
than you would for written text
• Use Text-to-Speech for first draft
• Ideally use a human voice for final version

28. References and further reading
• Mayer, R E (2005c). Principles for managing essential processing in
multimedia learning: Segmenting, pretraining, and modality principles.
In R.E. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of multimedia learning (pp.
147-158). New York: Cambridge University Press
• e-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers
and Designers of Multimedia Learning, Ruth C. Clark and Richard E. Mayer,
2nd edition (2007)
• Tony Karrer’s eLearning Technology blog: Text to Speech,
http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2009/05/text-to-speech.html
• Want to Create Engaging Screencasts? TechSmith,
http://tinyurl.com/2ertj6v
• Matthew’s blog on Adobe Captivate,
http://blogs.highlander.co.uk/tag/captivate/