RE: Use of the Q element for inline quotes

David Eadie wrote:
 
    "I was discussing markup for inline quotes with a colleague the other day and the level of browser support for the Q element highlighted a problem for accessible
textual content. The browser of choice(?) for most users (according to statistics) Internet Explorer does not enclose the content of the Q element in quotes,
while browsers such as Firefox, Mozilla and Opera do enclose the content of the Q element in quotes.
 
    If we are to believe the WAI guidelines then the use of the Q element will enhance the semantic impact of the text for a non-visual user. So should web
developers use the Q element with/without quotes?"
 
    Looking at a page that contains a paragraph with 2 passages defined with the <q> tag, one including quote marks ("), the other not, with Jaws v7.0, the following is apparent.
 
    Firefox Beta 1 did not supply quote marks for the quotation that did not have them included already. Jaws did not identify the quotation without quote marks as a quotation, but read it as normal text. Jaws did identify the quotation with the quote marks and behaved accordingly.
 
    Internet Explorer 6 did not supply the quote marks for the quotation that did not have them already either. Jaws however did identify both quotations as such and moderated its behaviour accordingly.
 
Regards,
Tink.
 
--
Léonie Watson - Head of Accessibility
http://www.nomensa.com/ <BLOCKED::http://www.nomensa.com/>  


________________________________

From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Eadie, David
Sent: 10 October 2005 11:50
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Use of the Q element for inline quotes



Hi all,

To quote or not to quote, that is the question...

I was discussing markup for inline quotes with a colleague the other day and the level of browser support for the Q element highlighted a problem for accessible textual content. The browser of choice(?) for most users (according to statistics) Internet Explorer does not enclose the content of the Q element in quotes, while browsers such as Firefox, Mozilla and Opera do enclose the content of the Q element in quotes. 

If we are to believe the WAI guidelines then the use of the Q element will enhance the semantic impact of the text for a non-visual user. So should web developers use the Q element with/without quotes?

Cheers,
Dave
David Eadie
Lecturer
Business Information Management
Caledonian Business School
Glasgow Caledonian University
Tel: 0141-331-8775
Fax: 0141-331-3199
email: d.eadie@gcal.ac.uk