Comments on: Too much accessibility - double expanded acronyms

By: Bim

Bim — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 07:52:43 +0000

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.

By: Ben 'Cerbera' Millar

Ben 'Cerbera' Millar — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 21:15:55 +0000

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. :-)

By: Bim

Bim — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 12:03:37 +0000

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.

By: Ben 'Cerbera' Millar

Ben 'Cerbera' Millar — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 03:41:20 +0000

I had escaped my references to HTML elements. I had structured my message with

I’ve written Are Glossaries Evil? on my blog now. And that was the link to it. :-)

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

By: Bim

Bim — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 17:05:59 +0000

You could do that by all means Ben, or if it’s just a case of WordPress swallowing your < and >, you only have to use the character codes < and > to type them in here. Obviously not a great deal of fun for more than a few tags. :)

By: Ben 'Cerbera' Millar

Ben 'Cerbera' Millar — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 16:45:21 +0000

Thanks. :-)

As fixing the HTML support in the comments could be a big task, would it be better if I make the comment on my blog and then link you to it?

By: Bim

Bim — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 12:39:42 +0000

Sorry Ben, I’ve asked if we can change the maxlength to 30.

By: Ben 'Cerbera' Millard

Ben 'Cerbera' Millard — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 00:45:42 +0000

Also, my surname is “Millard” but the maxlength on the Name box cuts it off before the “d”. I can live with this but it seems unnecessary.

(I am overriding the maxlength in this message. If my surname remains intact this time then there is no requirement a maxlength in the frontend.)

By: Ben 'Cerbera' Millar

Ben 'Cerbera' Millar — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 00:41:30 +0000

I’m trying to make a comment here but keep getting a Connection was reset” error. :-(

My reply included basic HTML, which I thought was allowed?

By: Bim

Bim — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 08:24:13 +0000

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.