A voice assistant may recognize speech accurately in a quiet room yet exclude users who cannot speak, need captions, use screen readers or require more time to respond.
Offer equivalent interaction modes
Provide a keyboard and text channel with the same essential tasks as voice. Text should remain available if microphone permission is denied, recognition confidence is low or audio playback is inaccessible. Do not force a voice-only consent flow for critical settings or account recovery.
Evaluate live transcription in context
Test turn-taking, latency, diarization, accents, proper nouns, noisy environments and interruptions. Make corrections possible before consequential actions. Captions must follow actual spoken content rather than a polished paraphrase that hides misrecognition. Preserve speaker labeling where it helps users identify who said what.
Design controls for assistive technology
Expose meaningful labels, focus order and state announcements. Avoid auto-playing important decisions without accessible pause and replay controls. Provide adjustable timeouts and confirm destructive or costly actions in a modality the person can review. WCAG 2.2 includes criteria relevant to text alternatives, captions and interface operation; local binding requirements vary.
Protect sensitive speech
Speech often contains names, locations and health details. State whether the service retains audio, transcripts, embeddings or debugging recordings. Consent to using a microphone is not consent to unrestricted training. Handle a mistaken transcript as an inaccurate record and supply correction options.
Concrete test
A user with a speech impairment books a routine appointment. The system offers text input, reads back the date in an accessible format and permits correction before submission. A tester verifies the flow using screen-reader navigation and the text-only fallback, rather than assuming an ASR accuracy score establishes accessibility.
Sources & Further Reading
- W3C WCAG 2.2 — World Wide Web Consortium.
- NIST AI RMF Core: govern map measure and manage — NIST.
- ICO: Ensuring individual rights in AI systems — UK Information Commissioner.
Evidence checked 25 October 2026. Applicability: Global. This material is general education, not legal, medical, investment or other professional advice. No vendor performance test is implied.