Re: Question on abbreviations (fwd)

At 08:04 AM 12/28/2000 , Anne Pemberton wrote:
>         Expanding an abbreviation or acronym one time in a page/document is
>insufficient for the user, no matter how onerous the task or expanding it.
>I would prefer to see the rule state that every time an abbreviation or
>acronym is used, it was exapandable by the user.

Anne makes a good argument here; I'd also note that we wouldn't
say "provide ALT text for a given image only on the first appearance
of that image, and expect the user agent to consider all images with
the same URI to have the same ALT text."

I think that if abbreviation expansion is going to be -required- in
some way, then that requirement shouldn't be based on first vs.
subsequent appearances in the text; if an abbreviation is to be
expanded, then all appearances of it should be expanded.

The criteria should instead be based on an understanding of the
audience and how the page is used, as well as the specifics of the
abbreviations used.  There are many cases in which it would not
be appropriate to expand -all- abbreviations but instead only
expand -some- of them.  (E.g., do you expand WAI if writing to the
WAI group?  What about writing to the XHTML-L group?  Do you supply
expansions for XHTML-L on the XHTML-L group?  Do you expand the
"E.g." I used at the start of this parenthetical diversion, and if
so, _how_ do you expand it?)

Abbreviation expansions in markup are useful.  What's needed,
however, is not attention to how many times an abbreviation is
expanded, but rather some sort of principles to allow the author
to know when she should provide an abbreviation expansion.

--Kynn


-- 
Kynn Bartlett  <kynn@idyllmtn.com>                    http://kynn.com/
Sr. Engineering Project Leader, Reef-Edapta       http://www.reef.com/
Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain Internet   http://www.idyllmtn.com/
Contributor, Special Edition Using XHTML     http://kynn.com/+seuxhtml
Unofficial Section 508 Checklist           http://kynn.com/+section508

Received on Thursday, 28 December 2000 13:36:34 UTC