- From: Joe Roeder <Jroeder@nib.org>
- Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 12:02:16 -0400
- To: guy@squeakywheel.org, "'Chuck Letourneau'" <cpl@starlingweb.com>
- Cc: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> Chuck Letourneau said: >One possibility is to tie this checkpoint to the Authoring Tool working >group (if it is not already being considered). Perhaps an authoring tool >could be given the "smarts" to prompt for the first expansion of an >acronym or abbreviation, then, optionally reuse the markup whenever the >same string is detected. Actually, given the way speech synthesizers work, even the expansion might sometimes be difficult to understand. As long as the acronym is not spread out with spaces (i.e., appears as a "word" to the screen reader) the screen reader's dictionary function can make any substitution the user wants. Here's an idea for the screen reader manufacturers: Have a hot-key feature that grabs the acronym being pointed to, inserts it into the dictionary, then lets the user highlight the expansion text and insert and edit it as the substitute text for the acronym. This would be a quick and easy way to handle acronyms that follow the print convention and take advantage of the screen reader's dictionary capability (assuming it has one). It also leaves the decision about what is to be presented verbally in the hands of the user who probably knows better what they want in this case than the web author. Also, it can avoid repetition of wordy expansions which can be as tedious to listen to as they would be to read visually. Joe Roeder
Received on Friday, 18 June 1999 12:02:36 UTC