RE: Opinions on accessible time formatting

I'm actually with John on this one… 

 

In part this is affected by some user-settings, but as I recall by defaults
most screen readers will normally read upper-case letters aloud, so 9:00 AM
would be read aloud as "nine aye em", whilst lower case 'might' be read as
"nine am" (as in "I am concerned about this")

 

Based upon that, my Best Practices would be to *always* note AM and PM in
uppercase - and if you read through even just this response thread, you'll
note that email clients are already using upper-case by default (presumption
based upon observations). 

 

However, I wondered if the Chicago Style guide (or others) had anything to
say here, and 5 minutes with Google confirms the following:



·        AP Style Guide: uses lower-case with periods (Example 1:00 a.m. or
3:00 p.m.)

·        Chicago Manual of Style: uses lower-case with periods

·        The New York Times Manual: uses lower-case with periods

·        Oxford Style Guide: uses lower-case, no periods (I personally would
not recommend this, due to the 'am' issue)

 

FWIW.

 

JF

 

 

From: Olaf Drümmer [mailto:olaflist@callassoftware.com] 
Sent: Friday, November 7, 2014 7:41 AM
To: WAI Interest Group
Cc: Olaf Drümmer
Subject: Re: Opinions on accessible time formatting

 

Better yet, express time using 24 hours…. AM and PM should never have been
invented…. ;-)

 

Olaf

 

On 7 Nov 2014, at 16:23, John Topp <jtopp@criticalmass.com> wrote:





Wouldn’t the periods be needed so that the screen reader doesn’t pronounce
them as words?  Or better yet, use capitals? AM PM 

 

On Nov 7, 2014, at 9:59 AM, Andy Keyworth <akeyworth@tbase.com> wrote:





04.11.2014, 16:12, "Andy Keyworth" <akeyworth@tbase.com>:



Hi,

I'm hoping I can get some advice on how expressions of time can be 
accessibly formatted on web pages.

For example, is 11:00 a.m. or 2:00 p.m. considered (generally) 
acceptable, or would 11:00 am or 2:00 pm (without periods between 
letters) be preferable? Is another format better?


As far as I know, these are pretty much equal in reality.

 

 

 

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