Re: How much does spelling matter
I fully agree with both KeyIsFull and Tward.
Unfortunately I cannot take much care of spelling in English since it is not my native language, but in Spanish I'm too perfectionist, even on informal channels like Facebook or text messaging, although using Unicode support for SMS is actually a bit more expensive.
Spell correctly not only gives a positive image about us; it also make text to speech conversion more clear. As a person I like translating, I saw that poorly spelled source texts complicate localization a lot.
On any website, not only Audiogames, it is not mandatory spelling correctly on forum posts, but in content suited for the general public, in which eventually will be casual visitors, taking care of writing on the content is essential.
There are spellchecking functionality in almost any current device, but this doesn't mean those utilities replace user knowledge. For example, in Spanish I often see texts laking accents on verbs which may be with or without accents depending if you want perfect simple past tense or a formal imperative. If this happen one or two times then may be typing errors, but when this is around all a text, I have no doubt that the writer only used the Word spellchecker and selected the first suggestion for all the cases, perhaps also choosing the Change All button.
Another frequent error in Spanish, only warned by the computer when the used program checks for grammatical errors, is ignore the opening of questions and exclaims with ¿ and ¡ respectively, which English TTS call inverted marks and, while they aren't used in English, in Spanish are mandatory.
For those asking about spellchecking on web browsers, in Firefox you must download dictionaries for the language(s) you want, unless Firefox English versions already come with those dicts. When you have installed one or more dictionaries, you can activate spellchecking temporarily by pressing Applications on an edit box and checking the Check spelling menu item, or permanently on the General tab of the advanced options (Tools menu). For non-English native speakers, I recommend to download the US English dictionary.
Internet Explorer comes with spellchecking since version 9 and includes many languages built-in. To change the default language, select it on the Manage Add-ins dialog box, accessed from Tools menu or the Programs tab in the Internet Options dialog.
Finally, as GorthalonTheDragon says, there are lots of sighted people with angry writing, and the big problem is that many people also misspell at work. I don't have a braille display, but when I read a word whose correct spelling I can't remember or figure based on the linguistic rules, I often stop to spell (read it letter by letter) it. Leaving braille in favor of digital information is as dangerous as leaving handwriting, so although I don't work in braille since I finished the high school on 2011, I sometimes read old papers or make some needed speaker notes with the Perkins typewriter.
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