Best practice for the abbr pattern

This is another response to the WaSP post about screen
reader issues  
with the abbr pattern:
http://www.webstandards.org/2007/04/27/haccessibility/


As I pointed out in a comment on the post, their example
uses the  
condensed form of the datetime, e.g.:

title="20070312T170000"

This currently causes problems for screen readers as they
attempt to  
read the numbers as one long string.

However, the datetime can also be written with dashes and
colons like  
this:

title="2007-03-12T17:00:00"


http://microformats.org/wiki/datetime-design-pattern

Would everyone agree that, for the sake of screen reader
users, we  
should update the wiki to strongly encourage this more
verbose  
version of datetimes and strongly discourage the contracted
version?

Some test results can be found here:
http://dotjay.co.uk/tests/screen-readers/da
te-time/#test-microformats

Bye,

Jeremy

-- 
Jeremy Keith

a d a c t i o

http://adactio.com/


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Hi Jeremy,

On Apr 27, 2007, at 9:49 AM, Jeremy Keith wrote:
> However, the datetime can also be written with dashes
and colons  
> like this:
>
> title="2007-03-12T17:00:00"
>
> 
http://microformats.org/wiki/datetime-design-pattern
>
> Would everyone agree that, for the sake of screen
reader users, we  
> should update the wiki to strongly encourage this more
verbose  
> version of datetimes and strongly discourage the
contracted version?

Can you confirm that:

a) This will in fact solve the screen reader problem

and

b) This still conforms with all the relevant W3C
recommendations


If so, then I'd agree with you, as the hyphenated version is
also  
more human-readable, and thus seems in keeping with
microformat  
philosophy.

-enp
>

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Hi Jeremy,

Putting hyphens/dashes in between the integers sounds like a
good idea
to me.  I do that for most file names that need a date, so
personally
I'm on board.

I'd be really interested in seeing if this does have an
impact on the
screen readers output at some point.

It's definitely worth updating the Wiki to reflect the
encouragement.

Dave

On 4/27/07, Jeremy Keith <jeremyadactio.com> wrote:
> This is another response to the WaSP post about screen
reader issues
> with the abbr pattern:
> http://www.webstandards.org/2007/04/27/haccessibility/

>
> As I pointed out in a comment on the post, their
example uses the
> condensed form of the datetime, e.g.:
>
> title="20070312T170000"
>
> This currently causes problems for screen readers as
they attempt to
> read the numbers as one long string.
>
> However, the datetime can also be written with dashes
and colons like
> this:
>
> title="2007-03-12T17:00:00"
>
> 
http://microformats.org/wiki/datetime-design-pattern
>
> Would everyone agree that, for the sake of screen
reader users, we
> should update the wiki to strongly encourage this more
verbose
> version of datetimes and strongly discourage the
contracted version?
>
> Some test results can be found here:
> http://dotjay.co.uk/tests/screen-readers/da
te-time/#test-microformats
>
> Bye,
>
> Jeremy
>
> --
> Jeremy Keith
>
> a d a c t i o
>
> http://adactio.com/
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> microformats-discuss mailing list
> microformats-discussmicroformats.org
> http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microforma
ts-discuss
>
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In message <BC58BFB1-B50D-4759-A341-9DE1A2B103CEadactio.com>, Jeremy
Keith <jeremyadactio.com> writes

>title="20070312T170000"
[...]
>can also be written with dashes and colons like  this:
>
>title="2007-03-12T17:00:00"

>Would everyone agree that, for the sake of screen reader
users, we
>should update the wiki to strongly encourage this more
verbose  version
>of datetimes and strongly discourage the contracted
version?

Yes; but I suspect that, from an accessibility PoV, the most
we can say
of the latter is that it's the lesser of two evils.

I would also suggest raising the matter on forums used by
blind (and
other) people who use text readers - Accessify being one
such forum:

        <http://www.accessi
fyforum.com/>

-- 
Andy Mabbett
            *  Say "NO!" to compulsory ID Cards: 
<http://www.no2id.net/>
            *  Free Our Data:  <http://www.freeourd
ata.org.uk>
            *  Are you using Microformats, yet: <http://microformats.org/
> ?
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Both upcoming and eventful do not have dashes in their
dates.

They will need to be evangelized.

Mike
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Dr. Ernie Prabhakar wrote:

>> title="2007-03-12T17:00:00"
>
> Can you confirm that:
> a) This will in fact solve the screen reader problem

It will not. Though I agree with Jeremy and Tantek that this
solution  
is slightly better than the current recommendation. It is
still far  
from accessible. Tantek and I discussed this format at SXSW
as a  
possible solution, but its only moderately helps for dates,
and  
doesn't help much for datetimes:

"2007-04-27" is mostly accessible as it's usually
read as either "two  
thousand seven. four. twenty-seven." or "two
thousand seven dash four  
dash twenty-seven." Sometimes the leading zero is
spoken, too.

It's important to note however, that everything past the T
is usually  
gibberish. Even given the *ideal* situation where the ':'s
are not  
spoken as "colon", the time zone delimiter is
spoken as "minus", and  
the colon separated pairs are spoken as "o'clock,"
the result is  
still less than ideal.

T12:00:00-06:00
Best case scenario "tee twelve o'clock zero zero minus
six o'clock."
Worst case scenario: "tee one two colon zero zero colon
zero zero  
dash zero six colon zero zero"

This also doesn't account for screen readers set to read in
other  
languages. Besides pronunciation phonemes, reader languages
have all  
sorts of rules for writing conventions (i.e. sometime
speaking "five  
o'clock" for "5:00" in English). I can't
begin to guess what problems  
that that would entail. We'd need to talk to the
internationalization  
team at the manufacturers.

I can try to meet with the i18n people on the Voiceover
team, but as  
today, Voiceover doesn't read any title attributes and so
doesn't  
have an issue with abbr-design-pattern. The problem is with
the more  
popular readers, Jaws and Window Eyes.

> b) This still conforms with all the relevant W3C
recommendations

It conforms to the ISO spec for dates, and the W3C specs for
markup,  
but the article points to a WCAG reference that indicates
abbr 
[title], acronym[title], td[abbr], and th[abbr] are meant
for  
speaking. Ex. "20 lbs" should be spoken
"twenty pounds." This is not  
implied for other elements like span[title], em[title],
etc.

The article proposes keeping abbr-design-pattern for uses
such as:

<abbr class="country-name"
title="Japan">JP</abbr>

But abolishing its misuse in the following: dates, long/lat,
and RFC  
type values.

<abbr class="dtstart"
title="2007-03-27T12:00:00-06:00">Noon
Central</ 
abbr>
<abbr class="geo"
title="30.300474;-97.747247">Austin</abbr>
;
<abbr class="type" title="home"
xml:lang="es">Casa</abbr>

Cheers,
James

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Dan Champion wrote:

> Webadmin - Tenbus wrote:
>> Mike Kaply wrote:
>>> Both upcoming and eventful do not have dashes
in their dates.
>>> They will need to be evangelized.
>>>
>> Wikevent.org's got it right <http://wikevent.org/en/ 
>> Joan_Armatrading_2007_5_7> we don't need
evangelising 
>
> Ditto for Revish - http://www.
revish.com/reviews/090613725X/ 
> danchamp/   

You guys are missing the point. Do you talk that way?

Is anyone gonna be in thirty point three. Dash ninety-seven
point  
seventy-five anytime soon? I should be there at two thousand
seven  
six nine tee fifteen thirty zero zero dash six o'clock.

Explanation: Austin, Texas, USA on June 9th at 3:30PM in
spoken ISO  
(2007-06-09T15:30:00-06:00) and rounded Geo
(30.300474;-97.747247).

James

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In message <EED4E7AF-DFF0-4EED-AC65-C374126C8DAEapple.com>, James Craig
<jcraigapple.com> writes

>You guys are missing the point. Do you talk that way?
>
>Is anyone gonna be in thirty point three. Dash
ninety-seven point
>seventy-five anytime soon? I should be there at two
thousand seven  six
>nine tee fifteen thirty zero zero dash six o'clock.

It gets worse:

        <abbr class="dtend"
title="19970423">April 22, 1997</abbr>

Since when was "twenty-second" an abbreviation of
"23"?

-- 
Andy Mabbett
            *  Say "NO!" to compulsory ID Cards: 
<http://www.no2id.net/>
            *  Free Our Data:  <http://www.freeourd
ata.org.uk>
            *  Are you using Microformats, yet: <http://microformats.org/
> ?
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> Both upcoming and eventful do not have dashes in their
dates.
>
> They will need to be evangelized.

I'll fix Eventful's hCalendaring to reflect this some time
this week.


Ted

-- 
Edward O'Connor
hober0gmail.com

Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem.

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