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Re: abbreviations

for

From: ckrugman@sbcglobal.net
Date: May 27, 2010 4:18PM

This is ridiculous. All professional articles use standard abbreviations and
acronyms such as HIV. As a blind person with a master's degree and
additional advanced training to think that a person relying on accessibility
with screen readers or other accessibility tools would not be aware of
accepted societal abbreviations is insulting. This goes way beyond concepts
of accessibility and reasonable accommodation. I don't know where this
originally came from but a reader of an article or visitor to a web site
that relies on accessibility tools may have a disability but stupidity is
not a disability that needs to be accommodated when making the internet
accessible.
Chuck
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Conley" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 2010 8:02 AM
Subject: [WebAIM] abbreviations


> Apologies if this has been discussed ad nauseam already.
>
> I know Jared has said in the past that WebAIM has shifted away from
> abbreviating from abbreviating common terms like HTML. I've considered
> this -- I expand things like PDF and etc, which probably do more harm
> than good -- but haven't actually changed anything yet, as our grant is
> nearly up and I plan on doing a site revamp if/when we're refunded.
>
> I'm being forced to confront the issue now, though, as I'm formatting a
> long article on HIV/AIDS, and I think having the text 'Human
> Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome' repeated at
> least once a paragraph would get wordy (and confusing) very quickly.
>
> So: is this something I should just let slide without a tag? Should I
> give them plain <abbr> tags? I don't know how screen readers would
> approach it, or if people are used to hearing 'hiv' pronounced and can
> auto-correct it in their head.
>
> --
> Dan Conley
> Information Specialist
> Center for International Rehabilitation Research Information and
> Exchange (CIRRIE)
> University at Buffalo, Health Sciences Library B6
> Phone: (716) 829-5728
> <EMAIL REMOVED>
> http://cirrie.buffalo.edu
>
>