[uf-discuss] A further possible solution to the "abbr" accessibility issue

Andy Mabbett andy at pigsonthewing.org.uk
Mon Dec 31 06:00:31 PST 2007


Early in December, I made the following suggestion, but in a separate,
and unclearly-titled thread.

I'm reposting it here, in a new thread, in the hope that it will warrant
discussion:

#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#

While I understand the desire to avoid namespacing per se, using:

        <span class="duration" title="value:PT2M23S">2:23</span>

or
        <span class="dtstart"
              title="value:20070912T16:03:00+01:00">
              4.03pm
        </span>

would render the title both more semantically accurate and
human-readable. It would also enable the users of assistive technologies
to hit the "next" button as soon as they hear "value colon" read out,
bypassing the machine-readable fragment.

Parsers "MUST" ignore titles not starting with "value:", thereby
ensuring compatibility with titles used on spans, for other purposes.

In the above "value:" is just as suggestion; the label could be
"machine-value:", "data-equivalent:", or some other such word or phrase.

This suggestion may case problems for non-English speakers, though.

Perhaps "data:" would be more internationally recognised?

#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#

Having had time to reflect, the latter would now be my preference.

-- 
Andy Mabbett


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