Technique 5.6 (abbr in TH)

aloha, y'all!

whilst discharging the action item i accepted at monday's teleconference,
to ask the GL WG for clarification of WCAG Checkpoint 5.6, i revisited the
HTML4 section on tables, and discovered that we and GL had been talking
about 2 different pieces of markup...

when i heard the term abbreviation, i had immediately thought of the HTML4
element ABBR, use of which (i still believe) makes sense when encoding
table headers that have been tersified by the author in order to preserve
the perceived gracefulness and uniformity of column width and header size
of the table he or she is encoding when it is rendered by a
visually-oriented user agent...

WCAG approached the issue from the opposite angle, working with the HTML4
definition of the "abbr" _attribute_ which is related to the TH and TD
elements...  according to the definition contained in the HTML4 rec
[reference 1]

quote
This attribute should be used to provide an abbreviated form of the cell's
content, and may be rendered by user agents when appropriate in place of
the cell's content. Abbreviated names should be short since user agents may
render them repeatedly. For instance, speech synthesizers may render the
abbreviated headers relating to a particular cell before rendering that
cell's content. 
unquote

which is consistent with WCAG Checkpoint 5.6

however, i question whether the WCAG scenario is actually more common in
the wild than the ERT scenario i outlined during the 22 November telecon,
an excerpt from which follows -- CR stands for Chris Ridpath; LK for Len
Kasday; MC for Michael Cooper; and GJR for me...

-- begin excerpt from 22 November ER-IG Teleconference
CR: Technique 5.6: Abbreviations for Header Labels; if have table header
that has short word as header, don't need ABBR, but if have verbose header,
may need ABBR

LK: what does the GL actually say -- does it use the word abbreviations or
ABBR?

MC: note mentions HTML's ABBR attribute

LK: on face of it, could this mean that GLs are wrongly interpreting ABBR?

CR: [reads technique for checkpoint from WCAG]

LK: does WCAG have it backwards? what is the purpose of this checkpoint,
and what do they mean by ABBR?

MC: what exactly is the purpose of ABBR in general?

GJR: I think that they mean that if you are using an abbreviation in a
header, enclose it in an ABBR container if you are using HTML; ABBR is
important for accessibility because screen readers, for example, usually
come with a set of abbreviation expansions that have been pre-defined for
the screen reader's dictionary, so that, for example, when the screen
reader encounters "Dr." it can expand it to either "Drive" (as in an
address) or "Doctor"; if you have an address such as:
       Dr. Smith
      11 Doe Dr.
a screen reader might read it as "Drive Smith, 11 Doe Drive"; by using the
ABBR element in HTML, however, an author could enclose each instance of the
abbreviation "d r period" in an ABBR, defining the word "Doctor" as the
expansion for the first instance and "Drive" as the expansion for the
second, so as to pass on to the AT the correct expansion for 2 identical
abbreviations; the ABBR element, therefore, allows for the
contextualization of abbreviations, and as such is of inestimable utility
for accessibility, as well as for anyone indulging in mobile computing

MC: ok, that explains the HTML element ABBR, but what about this checkpoint?

LK: WCAG says use terse abbreviation

GJR: my understanding of the purpose of the checkpoint is that an author
may want to use an abbreviation for a header for formatting purposes, so
that the table columns won't distort his or her desired layout or the
perceived gracefulness of the table; if the author has a header that reads
"Cost of Tractor Part 1294XRQ, model Z299, manufactured by General Motors'
Construction Parts Plant in Gary, Indiana", he could: (1) abbreviate it, so
as to keep the heading short and terse; (2) enclose the abbreviation in an
ABBR, if using HTML, so that anyone using the page visually, can mouseover
to expand the abbreviation, or, for someone using a screen reader in
combination with a UA with ABBR expansion set to "on", the AT would speak
the expanded ABBR when that user queries the header, so that he or she is
returned something semantically sensible, rather than a short string of
cryptic characters, such as "TP Z299"

// ACTION GJR: ask GL WG for clarification on ABBR in header checkpoint in WCAG
-- end excerpt from 22 November ER-IG Teleconference

so, my question to all of you out there in ER-land is, should we ask the GL
WG to consider our scenario, or should we let sleeping dogs lie?  

while i understand that my extended riff contained in the excerpt above is
the illegitimate offspring of a misconception -- namely, my mistaking the
ABBR referred to by Chris for the element, and not the attribute -- i still
believe that, on today's overwhelmingly visually-oriented web, table
headers are more likely to contain actual abbreviations than they are
verbose statements...  of course, whether or not the headers are verbose
depends upon a number of factors, including the purpose of the table and
the issuing organization -- if the printed version of a table generated by
the Bureau of Labor Statistics, for example, contains a verbose header,
then it is likely that the hypertextualized version will, as well, in which
case use of the abbr attribute is the proper repair strategy -- but if a
table header uses an actual abbreviation, then an expansion for that
abbreviation should be requested...

should the latter be mentioned as a special case of the Technique (in ERT)
and the Checkpoint (in WCAG) that cover use of the ABBR element?

should the repair strategy for table headers simply employ a simple
algorithm -- if the content of a TH is less than 5 characters, prompt for a
TITLE to be associated with a containing ABBR; if the content of a TH is
greater than 5, prompt for an abbreviation (using the abbr attribute
associated with TH and TD)

in any case, i believe that both scenarios need to be addressed by WCAG and
ERT...

gregory

PS: here is what the HTML4 rec has to say on the subject of ABBR [reference 2]

quote
The ABBR and ACRONYM elements allow authors to clearly indicate occurrences
of abbreviations and acronyms. Western languages make extensive use of
acronyms such as "GmbH", "NATO", and "F.B.I.", as well as abbreviations
like "M.", "Inc.", "et al.", "etc.". Both Chinese and Japanese use
analogous abbreviation mechanisms, wherein a long name is referred to
subsequently with a subset of the Han characters from the original
occurrence. Marking up these constructs provides useful information to user
agents and tools such as spell checkers, speech synthesizers, translation
systems and search-engine indexers. 

The content of the ABBR and ACRONYM elements specifies the abbreviated
expression itself, as it would normally appear in running text. The title
attribute of these elements may be used to provide the full or expanded
form of the expression. 
unquote

References
1. http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html4/struct/tables.html#adef-abbr
2. http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html4/struct/text.html#edef-ABBR

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Received on Tuesday, 23 November 1999 22:59:36 UTC