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Re: usage of abbreviation tag

for

From: Olaf Drümmer
Date: Sep 18, 2013 1:44AM

Hi Jukka,

Am 18 Sep 2013 um 08:46 schrieb "Jukka K. Korpela" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >:

> That's a good general principle, and the only really accessible way -
> though the question still arises how to handle that problem that many
> people keep forgetting things. They read an explanation, but they have
> forgotten when they see the abbreviation used a few pages later. And
> there's also the problem of non-linear reading: people can jump into any
> point in the text. You can use links to deal with this, but caution is
> needed. There is such a thing as over-linking. Too many links confuse
> people, especially since there is often no quick way of seeing or
> hearing what the link is really about.
>
> Specifically, I would rarely spell out an abbreviation like "BBC". It is
> probably better known than its expansion. And if the text is not in
> English, then it is probably better to explain, in the language of the
> text, what BBC is, rather than show the English expansion.

all this has nothing to do with accessibility!

It may have something to do with usability or with being nice towards a consumer of content, but nothing at all with accessibility.

Disability or not - a user may have to use the same extra effort to find out what something means if he / she doesn't understand it right away, whether that's an abbreviation, a technical term, the name of a person or city, or … - the slight exception being cognitive disabilities - but for these work has to be done on the editorial level anyway.


Olaf