WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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Re: Acronym/Abbreviation best practice

for

From: Webb, KerryA
Date: Mar 12, 2009 6:00PM

>
> I've been trying to wrap my mind around this. I'm guessing you're
> discussing something the actual programing which would repeat
> descriptions of acronyms at every occurance? If I'm correct, why does
> it need to be different for screenreader users thatn for sighted
> people? For example, at the beginning of an artical about SAAVI it
> might say, SAAVI, the Southern Arizona Association of the Visually
> Impaired, began, lah blah. Then for the rest of the article, it would
> just say SAAVI. So you're asking whether it should repeat the whole
> description? Why? If I read the acronym at the beginning of an
> oarticle, I'll either remember it or I won't. I guess being a recent
> screenreader user, I don't find it necessry. My main thing is
> navigation. I can usually decipher acronyms and such from context,
> just like when there's typos when I'm chatting. Like I don't know what
> ajax is but I assume its something to do with programming. If I want
> to know more, I google, or ask. So I guess I'm just trying to say that
> I use the screenreader the same way I surfed when I could see. Like
> was mentioned, I can just go back to the beginning of the article.
>

As I understand it, a sighted reader will be able to scan through a page
and will be able to quickly see where an acronym is first explained. A
person using a screen reader might be quickly stepping through the links
and may not know what SAAVI is if that appears in a link.

Kerry

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