[uf-discuss] Human and machine readable data format

[Ben Ward]

On 1 Jul 2008, at 17:01, Guillaume Lebleu wrote:

> Since the BBC's request was specifically related to screen readers,  
> we may want to distinguish "machine-readable", "human-readable" and  
> "human-hearable". I think there is less debate re: what is "human- 
> hearable" than there is debate re: what is "human-readable"

The BBC complaint directly refers to both screen readers and the  
display of unexpected text in tool-tips. It's not just about aural  
output.

At the core, in breaking with the semantics of an HTML element, we've  
broken the behaviour of technologies using the element correctly and  
intelligently (hence my strong opposition to continuing to stretch  
ABBR outside of textual abbreviations as commonly described by  
dictionaries: ‘An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or  
phrase.’ — Wikipedia, Apple OSX Dictionary, Dictionary.com)

B