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Re: ABBR vs. just spelling it out.

for

From: Kynn Bartlett
Date: Mar 23, 2006 10:50AM

On 3/23/06, Penny Roberts < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
> If you are going to quote me at least get it right: what I actually said
> was that expecting a blind person to go back to the beginning to find
> the expanded version was equally as bad as making them hear it in full
> (which referred to your suggestion of not abbreviating). Neither
> situation is good.


Why is a blind person having to go back to the beginning of a document to
find the expansion of a term any different from a sighted person having to
go back to the beginning of a document? Or, alternately, remember the
definition for the space of the page?

It seems that many people are convinced that acronyms and abbreviations are
an accessibility barrier in and of themselves. Can you explain for which
populations of people with disabilities this is true, and how exactly
providing abbrevation expansion via <abbr> helps?

--Kynn