Fwd: [Bug 15723] New: There needs to be a way to indicate what type of abbreviation is wrapped in an abbr element. The problem I am trying to solve: Proper indication to screen readers of the type of abbreviation so that the screen reader does not have to guess at what it shou

I think that this should be tagged a11y, but it isn't a tf priority.

Begin forwarded message:

> Resent-From: "Michael[tm] Smith" <mike@w3.org>
> From: bugzilla@jessica.w3.org
> Subject: [Bug 15723] New: There needs to be a way to indicate what type of abbreviation is wrapped in an abbr element. The problem I am trying to solve: Proper indication to screen readers of the type of abbreviation so that the screen reader does not have to guess at what it shou
> Date: 26 January, 2012 1:11:56 AM EST
> Resent-To: public-html@w3.org
> To: public-html@w3.org
> 
> https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=15723
> 
>           Summary: There needs to be a way to indicate what type of
>                    abbreviation is wrapped in an abbr element. The
>                    problem I am trying to solve: Proper indication to
>                    screen readers of the type of abbreviation so that the
>                    screen reader does not have to guess at what it shou
>           Product: HTML WG
>           Version: unspecified
>          Platform: Other
>               URL: http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#top
>        OS/Version: other
>            Status: NEW
>          Severity: normal
>          Priority: P3
>         Component: HTML5 spec (editor: Ian Hickson)
>        AssignedTo: ian@hixie.ch
>        ReportedBy: contributor@whatwg.org
>         QAContact: public-html-bugzilla@w3.org
>                CC: mike@w3.org, public-html-wg-issue-tracking@w3.org,
>                    public-html@w3.org
> 
> 
> Specification: http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html
> Multipage: http://www.whatwg.org/C#top
> Complete: http://www.whatwg.org/c#top
> 
> Comment:
> There needs to be a way to indicate what type of abbreviation is wrapped in an
> abbr element.
> 
> The problem I am trying to solve: Proper indication to screen readers of the
> type of abbreviation so that the screen reader does not have to guess at what
> it should do.
> 
> Initialisms should have each letter read, acronyms should have the
> abbreviation read as a word, shorthand should have the contents of the title
> attribute read.
> 
> Take the following example:
> 
> <abbr title="HyperText Markup Language">HTML</abbr>
> 
> In that example, the title should only be read if the user has asked titles be
> read.
> 
> <abbr title="Kentucky">KY</abbr>
> 
> In that example, a screen reader probably should replace KY with the contents
> of the title regardless of whether or not the use has asked for titles to be
> read. However, if that KY is in a postal address, then it probably should be
> treated as an initialism and have the letters read but not the title.
> 
> What I suggest is that the <abbr /> element have an optional type attribute.
> 
> type="initialism" - Screen readers SHOULD read the contents one letter at a
> time UNLESS the user has a preference to have the title read.
> 
> type="acronym" - Screen readers SHOULD read the contents as a word UNLESS the
> user has a preference to have the title read.
> 
> type="title" - Screen readers SHOULD read the contents of the title attribute
> if it is present
> 
> When no "type" attribute is set, the screen readers are free to use whatever
> logic they want to apply but SHOULD NOT read the title attribute UNLESS the
> user has a preference to have the title read. MathML would probably be a good
> example there, it's an initialism mixed with a word, but the way it is spelled
> with mixed case should make it easy for a screen reader to figure out.
> 
> -- Michael A. Peters <mpeters@domblogger.net> and Alice Wonder
> <awonder@domblogger.net>
> 
> Posted from: 71.84.0.205
> User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/535.7 (KHTML, like
> Gecko) Chrome/16.0.912.75 Safari/535.7
> 
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