CSS Aural Properties
CSS 2.1 became a W3C Recommendation in June 2011 and included a number of new properties designed to be used with screen readers and other user agents which enable users to listen to information as opposed to reading it. These Aural properties are part of CSS 2.1 but the W3C states that user agents are not required to implement them in order to be compliant with CSS 2.1 and support for these properties amongst the current versions of popular browsers is very limited.
This table lists these properties with an explanation of their use.
Aural Properties
| Property | Definition |
|---|---|
| azimuth | Specifies where the sound should come from in relation to the listener. |
| cue-after | Include a sound to be played after the contents of an element is 'spoken'. |
| cue-before | Include a sound to be played before the contents of an element is 'spoken'. |
| cue | A shorthand property to set cue-before and cue-after in one declaration. |
| elevation | Specifies if the sound comes from above, below or is level with the listener. |
| pause-after | Sets a pause which happens after speaking an element's contents. |
| pause-before | Sets a pause which happens before speaking an element's contents. |
| pause | A shorthand property for setting pause-after and pause-before in one declaration. |
| pitch-range | Sets the amount of variation allowed from the average pitch of a sound/speaking voice. |
| pitch | Specifies the pitch(frequency) of a speaking voice. |
| play-during | Sets a sound to be played as a background whilst the contents of an element is spoken. |
| richness | Specifies the richness of a speaking voice - the richer the voice the further it will carry. |
| speak-header | Specifies when the contents of a table-header cell is spoken. |
| speak-numeral | Specifies how numbers are spoken. |
| speak-punctuation | Specifies how punctuation is to be spoken. |
| speak | Specifies whether an element's contents will be rendered aurally(spoken) and how it will be spoken. |
| speech-rate | Specifies the rate at which text will be read aloud. |
| stress | Specifies the stress applied to the speaking of an element. |
| voice-family | Sets the voice-family of an element. |
| volume | Specifies the volume at which an element's contents should be spoken. |