To attach a sound style feature to an element, the CSS Aural Media or CSS Style Sheets are used. Instead of reading, the user can thus listen to the information. The speech synthesis and sound effects are used by the CSS Aural Media thus it is a great feature for visually impaired people.
Uses of the CSS Aural media:
- For blind or visually impaired people.
- To learn the correct pronunciation.
- For training purposes.
- For users with reading problems.
- For providing web access in vehicles.
- For home entertainment.
- For print-impaired communities.
- For medical documentation.
- For industrial documentation.
Aural Media Properties:
All the aural media properties are listed below:
| Property | Uses | Value |
| azimuth | Used to determine where the sound would come from. | angle
left-side far-left left center-left center center-right right far-right right-side behind leftwards rightwards |
| cue | Used to define the cue properties in one declaration. | cue-before
cue-after |
| cue-after | Used to define the sound to be played after speaking the content of an element. | none
url |
| cue-before | Used to define a sound to be played before speaking the content of an element. | none
URL |
| elevation | Used to determine where the sound would come from. | angle
below level above higher lower |
| pause | Used to define the pause properties in one declaration. | pause-before
pause-after |
| pause-after | Used to define a pause after speaking the contents of an element. | time
|
| pause-before | Used to define a pause before speaking the content of an element. | time
|
| pitch | Used to define the pitch of the speaking voice. | frequency
x-low low medium high x-high |
| pitch-range | Used to define the variation of the speaking voice to be the monotone or animated voice. | number |
| play-during | Used to define a sound to be played while speaking the content of an element. | auto
none URL mix repeat |
| richness | Used to define the sound quality of the speaking voice to be rich or thin. | number |
| speak | Used to determine whether the content will render aurally or not. | normal
none spell-out |
| speak-header | Used to define the way to handle the table headers and to determine whether the headers would be spoken before every cell, or only before a cell with a different header than the previous cell. | always
once |
| speak-numeral | Used to define the way to speak numbers. | digits
continuous |
| speak-punctuation | Used to define the way to speak the punctuation characters. | None
code |
| speech-rate | Used to define the speed of speaking. | number
x-slow slow medium fast x-fast faster slower |
| stress | Used to define the “stress” in the speaking voice. | number |
| voice-family | Used to define the voice family of the speaking voice. | specific-voice
generic-voice |
| volume | Used to define the volume of the speaking voice. | number
silent x-soft soft medium loud x-loud |