Problems with <acronym>/<abbr> Tags and Web Browsers/handicapped Persons

Dear www-html team,

In December 2005 i have added a test for Usability on my web site.
This test use the <acronym>/<abbr>-Tags, a language-Attribute in
the <acronym>-Tag and a table with more than 2 columns. It is
made for web browsers and screenreaders to test usability for
handicapped persons and is WAI Level AA conform.

One of my visitors test a screenreader on my Usability page and
he tell me that the screenreader ignore the language-Attribute
and read the table not correctly. 

After that i test it with several web browsers and have found
the following problems:

<acronym>-Tag, some web browsers doesn't show the user a visual
label like a dotted underline. If is a language-Attribute in the
<acronym>-Tag, like <span lang="de"> some browsers doesn't show
the titel from the <acronym>-Tag. 

<abbr>-Tag, some web browsers doesn't show the user a visual
label, other web browsers ignore the <abbr>-Tag.

After that i posted this circumstance in a Usability Forum.
I get new problems:

<acronym>/<abbr>-Tags only work if the mouse pointer is
moved over this, handicapped persons without a mouse have
no possibility to get the information in the "title" of
this Tags. 

The <acronym>-Tag is not part of XHTML 2, the <abbr>-Tag
is part of XHTML 2. I don't understand this, because
some browsers ignore the <abbr>-Tag.

After that i'm unsure if it make sense to use that Tags,
but handicapped persons need this Tags, also screenreaders.

The Usability Page with the language-Attribute <span lang="de">
is only available in german

http://www.aadmm.de/de/wai.htm

but the problems with the title of <acronym>/<abbr>-Tags and
handicapped persons without a mouse is available also in
English

http://www.aadmm.de/en/wai.htm

It's possible to switch the Language German/English on the 
top of both Usability Pages, so you can switch and must 
not reload the other version per URL.

The Code-Samples are also available on the Usability Pages
so it's possible to see the Test and the Code-Sample.

The test with the Table have no Code-Samples, but i use
the Recommendation from the W3C to make this Table.


Yours sincerely

Matthias Mauch

-- 
webmaster: http://www.aadmm.de, E-Mail: matthias.mauch@aadmm.de

Received on Friday, 27 January 2006 00:20:52 UTC