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Formatting Acronyms

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From: Morin, Gary (NIH/OD) [E]
Date: Mar 18, 2016 1:54PM

Happy Weekend!
I regularly teach a class on writing quality alternative text for documents, files, and web sites. Enhancing Reader Comprehension with Images and Graphics through Alternative Text for Better Accessibility (which you can see described at http://training.cit.nih.gov/class_details.aspx?cId=NIHCIT-AT173). The attendees are government employees and contractors. Naturally, a large part of our vocabulary is: ACRONYMS, some of which are spoken as words, others are spoken as letters (one organization was actually renamed so that it would not be spoken as a word but spelled out when spoken because of how it would have been pronounced).
As such, a frequent question is about formatting acronyms for smooth reading by ScreenReaders, whether in the body of a document/website or within the alt-text. Does anyone have an any prepared guidance or a reference that I can provide as a summary or handout? Any articles published on the web, rather than reinventing the wheel? I will probably provide them with a copy of Paul Bohman's Why Don't Screen Readers Always Read What's on the Screen? Part 1: Punctuation and Typographic Symbols. Deque, January 20, 2014. http://www.deque.com/blog/dont-screen-readers-read-whats-screen-part-1-punctuation-typographic-symbols/.
Any other suggested resources on how to format acronyms?
Thanks/Cheers
Gary

Gary M. Morin, Program Analyst
NIH Office of the Chief Information Officer

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Consider the environment. Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to.

what if the first question we asked was, "what is so unique about this situation that it justifies exclusion? instead of, "how much does it cost to make it accessible?




-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2016 2:49 PM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Surveys for a CSUN presentation (plase take them if you can)

Birkir,

Thank you for doing this. I hope to be able to attend your session. I¹m very interested in the survey results and the community discussion.

Best,

Judith Blankman



On 3/17/16, 10:33 AM, "WebAIM-Forum on behalf of Birkir R. Gunnarsson"
< <EMAIL REMOVED> on behalf of <EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> <EMAIL REMOVED> >> wrote:

>Greetings y'all.
>
>One of the presentations I am giving along with my buddy CB Averitt is
>dedicated to the issue of links Vs. buttons.
>This topic has generated passionate debates in some accessibility
>circles, and we want to try and gain a community perspective.
>To that end, would the accessibility experts on this list mind heading
>over and take our SME survey :
>https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SY3K9H5
>(it is only 5 questions).
>
>Those who are assistive technology or keyboard only users, could you
>take our user perspective survey:
>https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PGQNR2Q
>(it should only take you 5 minutes at most).
>
>If you are an SME and an end user, you can take both surveys of course.
>Just make sure to put the appropriate hat on.
>Our presentations at CSUN are all about real experiences and gaining
>perspectives from the accessibility community.
>
>We will share our findings with you, both at CSUN and through a blog or
>series of blogs (the links to which will be posted to this list).
>
>Thanks and much appreciated.
>-Birkir
>
>
>--
>Work hard. Have fun. Make history.
>>>archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
>