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Re: Use of abbr for the scientiifc equivalent of a vernacular name

for

From: Steve Green
Date: Apr 30, 2008 7:30AM

The 'title' attribute is not available to many types of users such as those
with text browsers, screen readers, voice recognition, keyboard navigation
and other adaptive technologies.

The Latin name ought to be in the page text at least once.

Steve



-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Dan Conley
Sent: 30 April 2008 13:22
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Use of abbr for the scientiifc equivalent of a
vernacular name

I think abbreviation tags should only be used for abbreviations. If you'd
like to get tooltip popups, another option would be to enclose it in a span
tag with a title, and then style the css to display a dotted underline like
abbreviations do. So, <span title="Passer domesticus">House Sparrow</span>.

I'm not sure how screen readers would handle this, though, but it seems to
be at least slightly better.

Dan Conley
Information Specialist
Center for International Information Research and Exchange (CIRRIE)
University at Buffalo, Health Sciences Library B6
Phone: (716) 829-3900 x145
<EMAIL REMOVED>
http://cirrie.buffalo.edu

Tim Beadle wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 1:02 PM, Andy Mabbett < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
wrote:
>> Can anyone see any accessibility issues with this pattern:
>>
>> <abbr title="Passer domesticus">House Sparrow</abbr>
>>
>> I suspect the former, but would like confirmation; or otherwise,
preferably.
>>
>> Perhaps we need a <pseudonym> element? ;-)
>
> It's surely a similar problem to the abbr datetime pattern in
> Microformats? Anyone who has configured abbreviation expansion will
> hear the Latin name, rather than the English one, and may be confused.
>
> Could you make it a user-configurable option? i.e. "Display species
> names in Latin" / "Display species names in English".
>
> Tim
>