1. What is the general goal of the feature?
In high stress situations, enumerators need to read back captured information to verify spelling and correctness. Text-to-speech for critical fields could provide error-free feedback for the enumerator to cross-check.
2. What are some example use cases for this feature?
Turtle tagging: Setting - a subtropical turtle nesting beach at night time. It is 30 degrees, humid, pitch black, the wind is howling, everyone's tired and somehow sweating and shivering at the same time. A turtle finishes nesting, a team of field workers descends on the animal, takes measurements, applies identifying tags (PIT tags like your cat, flipper tags like earrings but on flippers). The animal is 80kg of exhausted hate with a mission to get back to water and a beak ready to take your hand off.
The animal handler applies a tag and reads out the tag ID to the enumerator filling in the ODK Collect form on a tablet. The tag ID is something like either a 15 digit number, or a string like "WB78134" - easy to mis-read, mis-pronounce, mis-hear, mis-type. Those are four distinct error sources between primary data and form submission. Tired field workers can make silly spelling mistakes.
The proposed feature is a "speaker" button next to selected fields to use the Android device's built-in text-to-speech capability to read the entered tag ID back to the primary field worker who reads the ID (eyes on the ID) while listening to the text-to-speech audio (ears on the form).
Similar use cases might exist for other high-value text fields in other situations. Think information a life, medication, identity, finance, ownership etc might depend on being correct.
3. What can you contribute to making this feature a reality?
Beta testing.