Understanding Accessibility
by Vivienne Trulock
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Guideline 4. Clarify natural language usage
Checkpoint 4.2 - Specify the expansion of each abbreviation or acronym in a document where it first occurs
The <ABBR> (abbreviation) and <ACRONYM> tags should be used with title attributes to provide clarification of the meaning of the abbreviation or acronym text in the document. This both aids understanding by novice users and facilitates reading by screen readers which can read out the title text. The markup is only expected at the first instance of an abbreviation or acronym on the page.
How do I do it?
When using acronyms (BBC, HTML, CSS) or abbreviations (MathML) mark up the first instance of the acronym on the page with the acronym tag, and use a title attribute to elaborate on the acronym letters.
You can then style the acronym tag with style sheets as usual.
font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: small;
line-height: 150%;
color: #666666;
cursor: help;
border-bottom: 1px dotted black;
}
How do I check that it meets the WCAG criteria?
To test this checkpoint, each page should be scanned visually for abbreviations or acronyms. Where they are found, the first instance of each should be checked for correct markup. If the correct markup is found, the page will be deemed to have passed. If any instances of incorrect markup or no markup are found on the first instance of an abbreviation or acronym the page will fail the check even if the surrounding text contains the expanded text.
