Should Text to Speech be used sparingly?

[AnotherMe]

Due to final published size issues for the Adobe Captivate files, should Text-to-Speech be used sparingly?

[Paul Wilson CTDP · Accepted solution]

I've used narration extensively in my eLearning designs for years. I usually keep my quiz questions free of narration but just about every other slide in my courses include it.

It's been my experience that other multimedia items such as video, or images set at too high a resolution, are what typically slows down a course. Of course the new Captivate 9.0.2 should resolve some of those issues with the improved runtime efficiencies.

[AnotherMe]

Thanks for the feedback.

[BDuckWorks]

If you're concerned about file size, you can play with compression and file format settings. but compression of TTS audio can cause some strange artifacts and quickly make tolerable TTS become intolerable.

There may be other reasons to use it sparingly, such as audience preference or tolerance.

I've had some clients find TTS was acceptable for final delivery, while others didn't even want to review a draft of the course with TTS voices. (Things have improved since then!)

The bottom line is: test your product with actual users from your target audience. There is no substitute!

Managers, executives and consultants have all told me, and insisted I develop materials, based on their opinions and assumptions about the target audience.  Enough where I reconsider working on a project when I hear that 'our SMEs are too busy to review drafts,' or 'I can tell you what the reviewers will say.'