Accessibility is not a feature - it is essential to creating inclusive products. This is particularly true for survey platforms where accessibility is key to representative samples and maximal response rates.
One of the benefits of collecting voice responses is improved accessibility. For many people, responding with a microphone is considerably easier than using their keyboard, and it can be onerous to navigate traditional survey interfaces or type long, open-ended responses. It is equally important that these applications are navigable by screen readers, magnifiers and dictation tools.
One element of accessibility often neglected in online platforms is localization. Localization defines a site's ability to modify its text and appearance based on locale. This goes deeper than translation, and for Phonic this means contextually relevant translations and multilingual analytics.
Translation
Today we take another step towards making Phonic universally accessible by offering our transcription service in 31 new languages and dialects. This update will allows researchers all over the world to take advantage of transcription and speed up their research. The full list of languages is available inside the Phonic dashboard.
Localization
While it was always possible to translate Phonic surveys using a web translation tool, the translations are often imperfect and result in a poor user experience. This language launch also includes localization of our survey application in four languages, with more coming soon!
If you would like to include a language not currently included, please reach out to use at contact@phonic.ai.
