[Bug 7736] New: add tooltip attribute & keep title for other uses

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=7736

           Summary: add tooltip attribute & keep title for other uses
           Product: HTML WG
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: All
        OS/Version: All
            Status: NEW
          Severity: enhancement
          Priority: P3
         Component: HTML5 spec proposals
        AssignedTo: dave.null@w3.org
        ReportedBy: Nick_Levinson@yahoo.com
         QAContact: public-html-bugzilla@w3.org
                CC: ian@hixie.ch, mike@w3.org, public-html@w3.org


The title attribute has multiple uses, sometimes confusingly. They mainly
support tooltips. In the abbr and old acronym elements, they commonly support
both tooltips and text-to-speech (TTS) pronunciations. In another element or
two or so, they have other uses.

While tooltips are often positive, they can interfere with a user experience
when they pop up but don't add useful information or even are interesting. To
turn them off requires not having the title attribute but that denies
text-to-speech support (in their absence, TTS generates default pronunciations,
which may be wrong and even hard to comprehend).

E.g., the form "<abbr title="+15553676287">+1-555-FORMATS</abbr>" is required
in the hCard spec (http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard (as accessed 9-22-09))
but it leads to a TTS error if the page author wants TTS to say "1 5 5 5
formats". The error is not W3C's but is due to a shortage of attributes to
serve the range of needs in the wild.

A more semantic and dedicated attribute would clarify page authors' intentions.

I propose a tooltip attribute for most or all elements that could appear in a
body element.

The title attribute should be kept for other uses but its use for tooltips
should be deprecated.

Thank you.

-- 
Nick


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Received on Saturday, 26 September 2009 22:11:45 UTC