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Thread: RE: when acronyms mean nothing
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From: Steffi Rausch
Date: Fri, Jun 28 2002 7:47AM
Subject: RE: when acronyms mean nothing
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The acronym/abbreviation tags don't seem to work anyway in the screen
readers. I checked with Windows-Eyes, IBM HPR, and Connect Outloud which is
a scaled down version of JAWS. I put up a test page at
http://halcyonwebdesign.com/acronym.htm with the following code. The
span-style is the only thing that works but of course does not tell you what
it stands for. And the acronym and abbr tags don't work and don't even spell
out the word. Instead you hear "see" instead of "SCEA".
<p>Welcome to the <abbr title="Secondary Cumulative Effects
Analysis">SCEA</abbr>
training web site.</p>
<p>Welcome to the <acronym title="Secondary Cumulative Effects
Analysis">SCEA</acronym>
training web site.</p>
<span style="speak:spell-out">CNBC</span>
The W3C says: "4.2 - Specify the expansion of each abbreviation or acronym
in a document where it first occurs. [Priority 3]" Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines 1.0 <http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/>; W3C Recommendation
5-May-1999
Access Note: in the near future, browsers will let you choose to have the
abbreviations and acronyms expanded automatically. Or, provide the expansion
(especially of the first occurrence) in the main body of the document (i.e.
the way you would if you were not using HTML).
Does anyone see it working on their screen readers? Connect Outloud told me
that it has to be put in their dictionary to work, but I said that acronym
is an html tag that should be able to tell the screen reader to pronounce
the full title and it is what the W3C recommended for accessibility so they
should implement it. But oh well. Does anyone else feel the same way? Any
input from disabled persons would be greatly appreciated whether they feel
it is a real need or not. So in answer to TjL's question, I guess acronyms
really don't have any meaning as they won't work.
>I was working on a page <http://www.tntluoma.com/fun/fwd/ceonistas/>; which
>references CNBC. I went to mark it up with an <acronym> tag and suddenly
>something occurred to me...
>
><q>Huh.... I wonder what CNBC stands for?</q>
>
>So I went hunting, and found this page:
><http://www.cnbcasia.com.sg/faq/faq.asp>;
>
>Q: What does CNBC stand for?
>
>A: CNBC, per se, is not an acronym for anything. In the beginning when the
> dedicated channel was launched, it stood for Consumer News
> Business Channel, but this is no longer in use. We are simply
> CNBC, a service of NBC and Dow Jones.
>
>So how does one mark up an acronym that doesn't have any meaning?
>
>TjL
Steffi Rausch
RESI, Jr. Web Developer
410-704-2063
"Design is intelligence made visible." - Rick Eiber
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From: Holly Marie
Date: Fri, Jun 28 2002 10:17AM
Subject: Re: when acronyms mean nothing
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Steffi Rausch" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
| Does anyone see it working on their screen readers? Connect Outloud
told me
| that it has to be put in their dictionary to work, but I said that
acronym
| is an html tag that should be able to tell the screen reader to
pronounce
| the full title and it is what the W3C recommended for accessibility so
they
| should implement it. But oh well. Does anyone else feel the same way?
Any
| input from disabled persons would be greatly appreciated whether they
feel
| it is a real need or not. So in answer to TjL's question, I guess
acronyms
| really don't have any meaning as they won't work.
Well, to be clearer they don't work for one group or particular users
of some device, however they do work for other users that have access to
the visual display mode, so I think it may still be good to use these
when and where possible.
Not everyone who has accessibility challenges or trouble uses a screen
reader or special devices. Some actually use browsers that do support
more of the latest guidelines or even opera, and for those it may be a
good idea to use the tags when we and where we can.
And on another note:
I am not in a position to need extra accessibility care or focus, but I
find there are times where these options are good for me to use, too.
Example... though I can see and enjoy images, there may be times I would
rather load up many pages without images to get these to load faster and
get to the material quicker. I can see or read the ALTs and if a
particular image draws my attention and I want to stop and look, I can
simply switch to graphic mode.
If I am reading an overly complicated piece of technical data on some
web page and I run into a lot of Acronym and Abbreviation use, It would
be very likely I would hover those terms or or abbreviations to see what
they were. A good example may be a Governmental or Advocate site where
the use of Acronyms/Abbreviations might be high. Also any area of
technical web design or development may use a lot of abbreviations or
acronyms.
So these tools are good for a wide range of users, and because I know
which browsers support which, I do use those browsers because they are
the tools of my work.
I understand others may not be so fortunate, but outside of special
motor situations or screen readers, it appears that most or all browsers
support acronym well enough for a hover, except for NN4x ? and maybe
older versions of IE than 5?
The speak out loud style? not so sure, and would wonder about the cases
where people have CSS off ?
holly
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