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Turn on Read Aloud and Answer by Voice

Goal: Let candidates hear questions and options read aloud during an assessment, and optionally answer by speaking an option letter instead of clicking.

Who can do this: Anyone who can open the assessment builder for that assessment (company admins, Platform admins, Directory admins, and staff with appropriate permissions) can turn these on for an assessment. Candidates self-enable Read Aloud for their own attempt via a checkbox on the invite screen, even when the assessment owner hasn't turned it on generally.

Before you start​

  • Read Aloud and Answer by Voice are two separate settings — Answer by Voice cannot be turned on unless Read Aloud is already on for that assessment.
  • Both use the browser's built-in speech features, so behavior varies by browser and device:
    • Read Aloud works in effectively every modern browser, including iPhone/iPad.
    • Answer by Voice works in Chrome and Edge (desktop and Android). It is not available on iPhone/iPad in any browser, and is unreliable in Firefox and desktop Safari — candidates on those will see a message explaining this instead of a broken mic button.

Steps — turning it on for an assessment​

  1. Open the assessment at /assessments/[assessment-id].
  2. Go to the Settings tab.
  3. Find the Accessibility card and click Edit.
  4. Toggle Read Aloud on. (If you only want audio accessibility without voice answering, stop here and save.)
  5. Toggle Answer by Voice on if you also want candidates to be able to speak an option letter to select it. This toggle is disabled until Read Aloud is on.
  6. Save.

What candidates see​

  • Read Aloud: when a question loads, it's read aloud automatically after a short delay. A Read Again button lets them replay it any time, alongside a voice picker (Ezinne / Abeo) and a reading speed selector (Slower / Normal / Faster) — both choices stick for the rest of the attempt.
  • Lettered options (multi-choice, true/false, image MCQ, multiple correct) show an A. / B. / C. label directly in the option list, matching what's spoken aloud and what candidates say for Answer by Voice.
  • Answer by Voice (if enabled, and only for multiple-choice/true-false style questions): an Answer by Voice button appears. Pressing it listens for a spoken letter ("A", "B", etc.) and selects that option automatically — the option highlights the same way a click would.
  • If both Read Aloud and Answer by Voice are enabled for the assessment, candidates hear a short spoken introduction (what the assessment supports, how to use Answer by Voice) once, before the first question — not repeated on later questions.
  • If Answer by Voice is enabled but the candidate's browser doesn't support it (e.g. Firefox, or any browser on iPhone/iPad), they see a message explaining that instead of a silently missing button. On iPhone/iPad, the message points them to Settings → Accessibility → Voice Control, which lets them select any on-screen option by voice at the OS level.

Voice quality​

Read Aloud tries a higher-quality Azure neural voice first (genuinely Nigerian-accented), and falls back to the browser's own built-in voice automatically if that's unavailable — candidates won't see a difference either way beyond audio quality.

Assistive technology opt-in (candidate self-service)​

If an assessment owner hasn't turned on Read Aloud generally, candidates still see a checkbox on the invite screen: "I need assistive technology — read questions and options aloud during this assessment." Checking it turns on Read Aloud for that candidate's attempt only — it never turns on Answer by Voice, since that affects how responses are captured and stays under the assessment owner's control. This opt-in is recorded against the candidate's session for accessibility-compliance visibility.

What happens next​

  • Want to review how a candidate's attempt went generally? See Review assessment results. Assistive-tech opt-in is recorded against the session but not yet surfaced in that view.