Too much accessibility - double expanded acronyms

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By bim

We all know that when an abbreviation or initialisation is used, that it should be expanded at it's first use. We know too, that there are two ways this can be achieved: a) In plain text (best practice) or b) Using the ACRONYM or ABBR elements.

Unfortunately web authors often use both together. This is awful for screen reader users, if they have expansions enabled, they will get both the full plain text and the fully expanded acronym.

For example, if the code is: <p>Big friendly giant (<acronym title="Big friendly giant">BFG</acronym>)</p>

To sighted users the text will look like this: Big friendly giant (BFG) To screen reader users it could be announced as: Big friendly giant (Big friendly giant).

This repetition isn't just a pain in the ears, but also prevents these users from making the association between the full text and it's short form, and becoming familiar with the sound of the unexpanded acronym. So when it is used unexpanded later on it would be the first time they encounter it. So where you're providing the expansion in plain text, avoid the temptation to use ACRONYM or ABBR to expand the initials that immediately precede or follow it.



Comments (13)

Tag: Too much accessibility

Posted at: 30/07/2007 8:56 AM by Dave Wailing

Comments

Use of mark-up

KLewis said:

Hi Bim

Great post. straight to the point. This is one of my pet hates. I get annoyed when some people insist in using mark-up all the time and forget that plain text is so much more accessible.

When would you say it is right to use mark-up? If, as you suggest, you've expanded the abbreviation in plain text and the user has associated the long and short forms, would you then say you don't need to provide any later expansion on the same page?

Posted at: 30/7/2010 11:29 AM by Dave Wailing

Use of mark-ups 2

Bim said:

I'd say you don't absolutely need to use the ACRONYM element after providing a plain text expansion on the page, but can if you wish.

The only place where you most certainly should still provide an expansion, is if the acronym is used as a link. This is because users may well come to the link without having read the plain text, and links should always make sense out of context.

Posted at: 30/7/2010 11:31 AM by Dave Wailing

Abbreviations

KLewis said :

That's what I was thinking. You don't always need to use markup at all and can feasibly get away without it depending on how well your copy is written to start with.

I agree with your second point except perhaps where the abbreviation is the target. For example, if the title of a book is an abbreviation such as (and you know where I'm going...) 'The BFG'.

Posted at: 30/7/2010 11:32 AM by Dave Wailing

Abbreviations 2

Bim said:

:) Neat!

Yes, if the acronym is the end result, and well enough known, (like BBC), it might cause more confusion to provide an expansion.

Posted at: 30/7/2010 11:32 AM by Dave Wailing

Plain text expansions

Martin Kliehm said:

Of course you could use a plain text expansion and mark-up the acronym, but without a title. Screen readers probably don't make any use of it, but it would reduce the pain while keeping the semantic karma.

Posted at: 30/7/2010 11:33 AM by Dave Wailing

Well-known acronyms

JackP said :

Not only do we have the question "is the acronym/abbreviation sufficiently well known as to stand by itself?" such as "TV" or "UK". there's the supplementary question "is the acronym better known than what it stands for?"

For example, BBC. Who in their right minds would mentally translate this to "british broadcasting corporation". Or CNN. Or RNIB. Or HTML.

In each of these cases (except maybe RNIB) the acronym is more meaningful than the expansion.

My ROT is that if I expand it when thinking about it, it needs explanation. If not, people will probably benefit more by not having a tediously long phrase read out to them.

But I'm also with KLewis on titles/proper names...

By the way, just for anyone on IE6, that word 'rot' in the previous one has an acronym on it... it's my 'rule of thumb'.

Posted at: 30/7/2010 11:35 AM by Dave Wailing

Expanding acronyms unnecessary?

Ben 'Cerbera' Millar said:

Internet Explorer supports in versions 7 and 6. Probably back further than that, too.

If a website provides a glossary which is linked to on every page, do you find expanding shortened terms elsewhere becomes unnecessary?

Also, given that online dictionaries and search engines can provide definitions of nearly all shortened terms, is this even a problem content authors should be worrying about?

Posted at: 30/7/2010 11:36 AM by Dave Wailing

Context of acronyms

KLewis said:

Ben, in answer to both your questions my feeling is that context is all important. I'm dealing with a large glossary issue at the moment and it's hard to answer just such a question when you don't know the content or the context. If you do then I'd say it's (usually) dead easy to expand in plain text as Bim suggests and it hurts no-one.

Jack, your rule-of-thumb if fine but only so far. You have to careful how you judge whether an abbreviation is well known, but yes. some are easier than others. If you work in a large company as I do then you get bombarded with abbreviations and acronyms all day by people who assume you know them. My rule is that if I don't recognise it then I can safely ignore it :-)

Posted at: 30/7/2010 11:37 AM by Dave Wailing

Explanations vs glossaries

Bim said:

Ben, I'd never suggest that a link to an expansion on another page could replace an on the spot or prior expansion. Think about the journey:

1. First the user has to find the Glossary link, this will take them away from the text they were reading. That is if they realise that a Glossary link is likely to be available, and that they understand what it might mean, it isn't a word in British Sign Language, for instance.
2. They follow the link and reach the Glossary page.
3. Now they need to find the abbreviation they want.
4. Return to the page they were reading.
5. Now all they have to do is find the point at which they stopped reading.

This is one devil of a burden on all users, just to save giving the web author the trouble of providing an expansion.

On familiarity, I'm with Jack's view that common abbreviations shouldn't be expanded, with the proviso that it's unique. For instance consider the statement:

"In 2001, Fred joined the AA."

That might lead to misunderstanding, and perhaps should be expanded, even though it's common.

Posted at: 30/7/2010 11:40 AM by Dave Wailing

Are glossaries evil?

Ben 'Cerbera' Millar said:

I've written Are Glossaries Evil? on my blog now.

http://projectcerbera.com/blog/2007/08/glossaries

Comments to it should go here, on the WAC blog, since that's where the discussion is taking place.

Posted at: 30/7/2010 11:44 AM by Dave Wailing

Are glossaries evil? 2

Bim said:

That's a well argued article Ben, except that if a page used so many acronyms that giving a full text expansion would make a noticeable difference to the page weight, it would be unmanageable for anyone who had to use a glossary to find out what they meant.

Many thanks for saying that my latter comment has given you pause for thought though. Here's another aspect, not mentioned so far, that may persuade you further.

Some acronyms can be mistaken for proper words, or mispelling of words, especially when read phoenetically, which is what a screen reader does with words that aren't in its punctuation list.

Take a fictional example:
"He joined NUT as a secretary in 1999."

Visually it's clear that "NUT" is an acronym, but if you can't see that it is capitalised, only the fact that it doesn't quite make sense read as a word is going to give you a clue. It could, when read aloud at speed also be mistaken for "He joined not as a secretary ...".

Users who have misheard the sentence, without the visual clue, probably wouldn't even be looking for a Glossary link.

Posted at: 30/7/2010 11:47 AM by Dave Wailing

Are glossaries evil? 3

Ben 'Cerbera' Millar said:

If a few short terms are used very frequently on a page, expanding them all adds noticeable download time. But they would only need a small number of entries in a glossary, keeping it manageable?

For example, Calthorpe's Adult Education Course List. This has a few abbreviated difficulty levels, each of which is repeated severa times on the page. The meanings must be available to all users and they need a bit more description than just an expansion.

Putting these separate Glossary page seemed like a bit of a trek, as you've mentioned. I used a mini-glossary on that page. Was that a reasonable approach to this situation?

The NUT example is compelling. How about if it were a link to NUT's website? Would using a title="" on that link to expand the name be reasonable? The latter would explain what the term meant whilst the former enabled users to go and find out more about the illustrious NUT organisation. :-)

Posted at: 30/7/2010 11:48 AM by Dave Wailing

Are glossaries evil? 4

Bim said:

That's a perfectly reasonable and well thought out solution Ben. In effect, you've provided the expansion in plain text prior to the first time it's used.

Another suitable solution, that could be used for a similar situation, perhaps with a larger glossary, is to have the definitions listed on another page that opens in a new window, (with appropriate warning), so the user can refer back to it by keeping the new window open while they read the page, so it's available to be referred back to, without moving the focus on the main page. If this technique were used though, I'd be tempted to use the term "Difficulty levels explained", rather than "glossary", as the link text.

Posted at: 30/7/2010 11:49 AM by Dave Wailing

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