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Re: ABBR vs. just spelling it out.

for

From: Kynn Bartlett
Date: Mar 22, 2006 9:50AM

On 3/22/06, John Foliot - WATS.ca < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
>
> > The suggestion was given "spell out the whole thing, and then use
> > <abbr> on all subsequent appearances." But that proposal leads to
> > something which you (Penny) admit is undesirable. Is this really
> > "increased accessibility" or is it subjecting blind folks to
> > something which is unpleasant?
>
> C'mon Kynn, I would expect better than that. "Blind folks" is but a
> segment of the spectrum - we aren't developing for specific user groups
> are we?


Did you miss the post I was replying to? Because it dealt with someone
saying they wouldn't want to hear it repeatedly. Your expectations of
"better" are off here because you've cut out the context.

(For the record, I didn't expect better from you; in general, this list is
full of people who look for the "gotchas!" and fail to understand context,
instead looking for things out of context with which to get self-righteous
about.)


> This is clearly a user-agent issue, and while we should be
> cognoscente of the impact; I cringe when we start making decisions based
> upon specific user agent "requirements" vs. "the correct thing to do".
> For now, it is (like many things) a judgment call at the developer's
> end.


What does that have to do with that I said?

As has been noted, there is either "all on" or "all off" for screenreaders.
Part of the impact is understanding that when you think you're being all
good and wonderful by marking up every acronym or abbreviation (which most
people don't do, and shouldn't do), you're either (a) not providing any
information to screenreader users, or (b) providing way too much information
to screenreader users.

I think that if the expansion is going to be claimed to be useful, it makes
more sense to require that the full version be used every time. It makes as
much sense as requiring <abbr> for every abbreviated form.

--Kynn

PS: The idea held by some that cognitively disabled people use mouseover
tooltips to understand abbreviations and acronyms seems poorly supported and
rather unrealistic. I'd love to hear actual studies, rather than
pie-in-the-sky declarations, based on actual users with disabilities and how
they use the web.