15. WhisperPoint
WhisperPoint: Supporting Presentations by Voice
Download the prototype:
The style of presenting in which the speaker stands in front of an electronic whiteboard or screen, as typified by TED, is currently popular. In this style there is no lectern, and the speaker cannot refer directly to a script. The only cue to the script is the slide being shown, and to consult it the speaker must turn back to the screen behind, or stare at a small monitor for the presenter that is sometimes placed at the front of the stage. These actions serve only to give the speaker the information needed to carry the presentation forward; they mean nothing to the audience. Yet such movements of the speaker's body invite joint attention, which people are equipped with, and may draw the audience's gaze toward whatever the speaker is looking at. In a presentation where the speaker stands in front of the screen, the speaker's bearing and presence are themselves important content. It is therefore often desirable for the audience's gaze to stay on the speaker, and such redundant shifts of gaze should be suppressed.
This work proposes WhisperPoint, a support system that uses a small wireless Bluetooth headset to tell the speaker, by voice, what is in the script. It allows a presentation that is complete while the speaker essentially keeps facing forward, and that is more accomplished as a performance. The system is expected to suppress the audience's redundant shifts of gaze caused by the speaker looking at the screen to check the slides.
A small wireless Bluetooth headset can be worn without spoiling the speaker's appearance, and since TED-style presentations often involve a wireless microphone anyway, the audience is unlikely to find it strange.
For practising a presentation from memory. After a few run-throughs you find you have learnt it.
For putting together a TED-style presentation at short notice.
Note: thanks to this tool I had memorized the talk by the time of the event, so on the day I used nothing at all.
How to use it:
- Install the above. (PowerPoint is required.)
- クリップボード読み上げツール「棒読みちゃん」をダウンロードし実行．クリップボード監視する
- Start PowerPoint and edit your slides. In the notes field, write <whisper>XXXX</whisper>, putting the text you want read aloud in place of XXXX.
- Choose "Start Slide Show" from the WhisperPoint menu.
- As the slides advance, the text is read aloud.
- With a wireless Bluetooth headset, the audience is less likely to notice that you are using it.
- Use Bouyomi-chan to adjust the reading speed and voice, and to switch between the audio output for demonstration videos during the slide show and the output for the text being read.
(c) Kazutaka Kurihara