TalkBack Experience
Vote count: 0 Average: 0 Points: 0
Total votes per button
| Button | Votes |
|---|
| 1. Talkback reads and can interract with none of the screen elements. | 0 |
| 2. Talkback reads and can interract with a few screen elements | 0 |
| 3. Talkback reads and can interract with some screen elements | 0 |
| 4. Talkback reads and can interract with most screen elements. | 0 |
| 5. Talkback reads and can interract with all app elements on all screens | 0 |
Labelled Buttons And Controls
Vote count: 0 Average: 0 Points: 0
Total votes per button
| Button | Votes |
|---|
| 1. No buttons or controls are Labelled | 0 |
| 2. a Few buttons & Controls Are Clearly Labelled | 0 |
| 3. Some buttons & Controls Are Clearly Labelled | 0 |
| 4. Most buttons & Controls Are Clearly Labelled | 0 |
| 5. All Buttons & Controls Are Clearly Labelled | 0 |
High Contrast Black Background With Bright Text Available
Vote count: 0 Average: 0 Points: 0
Total votes per button
| Button | Votes |
|---|
| 1. The app or game has no way to adjust it's look to high contrast black | 0 |
| 2. The app or game has no way to adjust it's look to high contrast black | 0 |
| 3. The App or game has a night mode or black theme available | 0 |
| 4. The App or game has a black theme by default | 0 |
| 5. The app or game allows you to set the color of all foreground and | 0 |
Font Sizes Are Sufficiently Large Or Adjustable To Be Large Enough To Read Comfortably
Vote count: 0 Average: 0 Points: 0
Total votes per button
| Button | Votes |
|---|
| 1. Font Sizes Are Insufficient For Me To Read | 0 |
| 2. Font sizes are difficult for me to read | 0 |
| 3. Some Of The Font sizes are large but most are still difficult for me | 0 |
| 4. Font sizes are large but some are still difficult for me to see | 0 |
| 5. Font sizes are large and easy for me to see | 0 |
App Or Game Usable Without relying on Hearing
Vote count: 0 Average: 0 Points: 0
Total votes per button
| Button | Votes |
|---|
| 1. No Audio Queues Are Available and the app is not usable without hearing | 0 |
| 2. No Audio Queues Are Available but aren't required to use the app or game | 0 |
| 3. Audio Queues and Captions are provided visually | 0 |
General Experience using this app or game with my accessibility tools and settings
Vote count: 0 Average: 0 Points: 0
Total votes per button
| Button | Votes |
|---|
| 1. It is a very difficult app or game to use | 0 |
| 2. It is a somewhat difficult app or game to use | 0 |
| 3. It is a somewhat usable app or game but has some issues | 0 |
| 4. It is a fairly easy app or game to use | 0 |
| 5. It is an extremely easy app or game to use | 0 |
Keyboard Accessible
Vote count: 0 Average: 0 Points: 0
Total votes per button
| Button | Votes |
|---|
| 1. Not Usable With A Physical Keyboard | 0 |
| 2. Most of the interface works With A Physical Keyboard | 0 |
| 3. Most of the app works With A Physical Keyboard | 0 |
| 4. All of the app works With A Physical Keyboard | 0 |
| 5. All of the app works With A Physical Keyboard and it has keyboard shortcuts for commonly used tasks | 0 |
Comments
Not my usual helpful review but...
Sorry folks, Normally I try to have something well-researched and cogent to say. For now though, I want to insert here that this is the only app I've come across in this line that really has any aplication for me. Because it can control the entire phone, it may have appclications for physically impaired users. I may try it out and leave a review worth reading despite how I feel about the idea of communicating with my phone by voice.
Utter in review
Introduction
I am not your ideal spokesperson for a voice assistant. I find them unreliable and counter-intuitive. I have terrible luck with the things, but I'm really intrigued by Utter. If it works the way the brochure says, then it would be the only viable solution on any platform for using a handset completely hands-free. Useful if you have dextarity issues or do not have the use of your hands or fingers. As I'm a talkback user, this review takes screen reader compatibility into account.
Documentation
Utter is a necessarily complex program. Happily enough, it comes with a manual. Sadly, the manual is hosted on the XDA developers forum. Credit where it's due, the XDA developers are terrific at amassing useful information... At presenting it? ...Not so much. Fortunately the firefox reader will take the articles out of the forum junk so they can be read more or less; however, the pages do take an extravagantly long time to load in firefox on my moto G. Also, if there are comments and Q and A's in the replys, those are off limits to me. Most of the programs features are completely undocumented. Some parts of the user guide contain things like, "sorry, I'll get around to writing this later", although it's clear that the last updates were in 2012. Updating and repackaging the userguide as a google Ebook would be a huge plus. If I get utter working I will offer to contribute.
Listening methods
I want utter to let me use the phone completely hands-free. In order to do that, I need to wake the phone with speech. First I noticed that the icons in settings for toggleing the listening methods do not say whether they are on or off when using talkback. The only way I have been able to tell whether one is on or off is to try and use the method. This has been a problem for waking utter with speech because if it doesn't work, I can't be sure the problem is that the voice method is off, or that the phone didn't hear me properly. The phone hears me a few times, but after that, it goes back to sleep forever until I turn the wakeup command back on. After two weeks of banging away, I still can't get the wakeup voice command to work. So, I turned off shake to continuous read in talkback and turned on shake to voice command in Utter.
Notification icon
Utter sits in my notification area and notifies me about things such as fetching. I am fairly bemused about this because there is no document explainig what the notification messages mean.
Input methods
Utter shows it's beta side once again, as you can choose from four dictation engines, but only google is actually available. One thing I need this program to do is work without an internet connection, since having an internet connection can't always be relied upon, such as when in the subway system for example. I'm hoping that once all four input methods are enabled, one will let me work offline. I've now been using utter experimentally for three weeks, and I am still getting ambiant noise errors about half the time. Embedded in Utter is is an uber cute video of a man sitting in a soundless room making his phone jump through hoops with voice commands. Great, but I lock myself in a bathroom two rooms and a hallway removed from the rest of the house, and I'm still getting noise errors. It does seem to be getting better and better at recognising what I say as time goes by, but it doesn't seem to be getting better at distinguishing my voice from the surrounding noise. What I'd really like to see is the same video shot on busiy street corners, in busy coffee shops, on city busses, and so on. After all, isn't that how we use our phones? Not too often do you find yourself in a stone quiet place.
accessibility service
Utter is, quite rightly, listed as an accessibility service. By default it is turned off in accessibility preferences, but the only thing it would offer you if turned on would be reading of new notifications. Speaking as a reviewer for inclusive android, accessibility options could stand to be fleshed out. These might include default commands for turning on or off various accessibility services, commands for adjusting fonts and visual elements on the fly, commands for zooming and commands for exploring by touch and using granularity.
Custom Commands
This is the real power of utter. You can make custom commands both through the utter interface and through the voice command system. I've just spent an hour trying to create a custom command using voice. Utter consistently recognizes that I want to create a command, but then will not recognize what I want the command to do.
Creating commands through the interface was querky but I had more success. The GUI let me browse for the command I wanted. Once I found the command and tapped it, the create window disappeared on me. Still, I was able to go into the edit commands window and tuch the null command. Then I could set my phrases. So, now I have a voice command to turn talkback on. Cool!
It's not clear what a software needs in order to be controlled by Utter. For example, maildroid, my preferred email application, was not in the list of commands. So, I don't think I could compose a new email message using maildroid compose, even though that option is listed in my new mail programs. Some documentation on this would be helpful.
Talkback issues
I found three main issues when using this program with talkback.
Conclusion
Utter has so far met my very low expectations. It's clear to me though that enough work has been done so that the project should move beyond it's current catch as catch can funding model towards something more substancial. Pollish up the manual and start looking for grant funding through disability organizations, universities, and government sources.
I'm terribly biest against these things, due mostly to the fact that I've never seen one that really worked, especially not without a high degree of training and maintanance. For some one who jenuinely needs to rely on voice control and who has the level of support for thraining and maintanance though, utter has the potential to offer the most flexible and viable solution on any smart phone platform. If I were in a position where I really needed it, I would have no problem supporting the project with my dollars and my time.