- From: Charles F. Munat <chas@munat.com>
- Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 12:28:02 -0800
- To: "'Kynn Bartlett'" <kynn-edapta@idyllmtn.com>, "'Bailey, Bruce'" <Bruce_Bailey@ed.gov>
- Cc: "'Frank Tobin'" <ftobin@uiuc.edu>, <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Kynn Bartlett wrote: "4.2 Specify the expansion of each abbreviation or acronym in a document where it first occurs. "This can be difficult especially if it is demanded that the word be expanded _regardless of audience_ and if it is demanded that it be encoded using _markup_ and not naturally as English allows for. "In other words, with a strict interpretation, this quickly becomes onerous -- and we've seen in recent days that many people are very quick to demand strict interpretations." I reply: As has been pointed out repeatedly, "strict interpretations" is your interpretation of anyone else's interpretation that doesn't align with yours, Kynn. There is nothing strict about taking the checkpoints at face value. In 4.2 (above), there is nothing about using markup. Clearly, this checkpoint is met whether you use markup, or just expand the abbreviation in the text. In fact, this checkpoint is standard protocol for *all* good writing. How many times have you been reading an article in a journal and been mystified by an acronym? Almost always, if you look back you'll see that the acronym is defined where it is first used. This isn't an accident. Any editor will tell you: it's just the right way to do things. So I don't think that 4.2 is very onerous at all, nor do I even think it's especially accessibility-related. It's good practice for everyone. (If you think it's onerous, Kynn, I recommend that you don't go into journalism. You'll be forced to do it all the time.) As for audience, don't be so quick to assume that everyone knows everything. That, too, is a mark of bad writing. Often I've read technical papers that are filled with undefined acronyms and abbreviations and found myself stymied by one or two with which I was unfamiliar. Students read those papers, too. Do everyone a favor and expand them. Isn't this especially important for people with cognitive disabilities? One area where I think this checkpoint is unclear is that it appears to require expansion of abbreviations like i.e., etc., and e.g. I doubt that the authors of the WCAG really intended to force everyone to write: <abbr lang="la" title="id est">i.e.</abbr> the first time they used i.e. But it might not be a bad idea. It certainly doesn't hurt anything. Then again, when writing documents that might be read by persons with cognitive disabilities, I recommend that we use "that is" for i.e., "for example" for e.g., and "and the rest" for etc. Or expand them that way: <abbr title="that is">i.e.</abbr> Hell, maybe the average English speaker will finally learn the difference between i.e. and e.g.! There are also some abbreviations that are universal. For example, does anyone on the planet not know what "U.S.A." stands for? But again, when writing for those with cognitive disabilities, maybe even that abbreviation should be expanded. I don't think this checkpoint is onerous at all. The real problem comes when people use poorly-designed WYSIWYG authoring tools to build their pages. But that's another argument for avoiding the HTML and just defining abbreviations and acronyms in the text (and for coding by hand until a decent authoring tool is released). Charles F. Munat, Seattle, Washington
Received on Wednesday, 20 December 2000 15:22:01 UTC