Voice Teleprompter
Project Overview
Teleprompters scroll at a fixed speed, so when a speaker pauses or changes a word, the script runs away from them. I designed and built a prototype that follows the speaker’s actual words instead, and never moves on time alone.
Industries
Productivity
Marketplace
Services
Independent prototype
AI-assisted development
Speech-following
Year
2026
Сhallenge
Following speech sounds simple until real speakers do real things: they pause, paraphrase, skip headings, repeat a phrase for emphasis, or talk to the room. The hard part wasn’t moving the highlight; it was knowing when not to move it. An early version also failed silently when the transcription provider refused service, which taught me to separate the microphone, transcription and alignment so each failure is visible.
Design Approach
A conservative aligner: it advances only when recognised words match the script in sequence, and favours the nearby passage over a distant repeat. Silence, unrelated speech and provider errors hold the position, and the screen says “Finding your place…” with click-to-recover instead of guessing. An eight-word lime highlight keeps the eye anchored without lighting up a whole paragraph. I wrote the behaviour as tests first (silence, paraphrase, skipped heading, repeated phrase, failure), then built the interface around them with AI-assisted development.
Results
A prototype teleprompter that follows the speaker’s words instead of a timer. It holds during pauses and keeps its place through small paraphrases. Built and tested with AI-assisted development. Phase 1 prototype with simulated speech input; 41 automated tests passing. Live microphone integration is the next phase.