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

for

From: Dan Conley
Date: Apr 30, 2008 8:30AM

Steve Green wrote:
> 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.

Is the abbr tag accessible to keyboard users? There was an ALA article
about total keyboard accessibility a while back
(http://www.alistapart.com/articles/hattrick/) that advocated making the
abbreviations also link to a glossary of terms. This leads to other
problems, though, with a ton of links to tab through, etc...

Andy Mabbett wrote:
>> The Latin name ought to be in the page text at least once.
>
> That's a rather sweeping statement; surely it depends on the context?

Well, if it's only available in the title of an abbreviation tag then it
won't be able to be accessed by all users. This may be fine (I get the
impression that this is going to be used as a 'bonus feature,' or
something similar, so it may not be the most important thing if only
most users can access it.

The problem is that most accessibility fixes seem to work only for ~75%
of users...

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