A best practice for abbreviations is expanding them on first use.
Instead, the old practice to use an <abbr> element with a title attribute to expand the abbreviation is generally not recommended any longer because it's not accessible for everyone:
- It doesn't work for keyboard users.
- It doesn't work on touch devices (mobile).
- It is scarcely supported by browsers / screen readers combinations.
In the very first paragraphs of the Accessibility Maturity Model group note I could find a mixed use of the two patterns above, which also triggers a consistency issue:
- Correct: Accessibility Maturity Model (AMM)
- Not recommended:
<abbr title="Non-Governmental Organization">NGO</abbr>
- Not recommended:
<abbr title="Small Office Home Office">SOHO</abbr>
- Not recommended:
<abbr title="Human Resources">HR</abbr>
- More occurrences.
Many users can't access the expansion of these abbreviations. I'd like to suggest avoiding the usage of <abbr> + title altogether and expand on first use instead.
The only case in this document where abbr + title is maybe acceptable is <abbr title="World Wide Web Consortium">W3C</abbr> but that's only because most people reading this document already know what 'W3C' stands for.
A best practice for abbreviations is expanding them on first use.
Instead, the old practice to use an
<abbr>element with atitleattribute to expand the abbreviation is generally not recommended any longer because it's not accessible for everyone:In the very first paragraphs of the Accessibility Maturity Model group note I could find a mixed use of the two patterns above, which also triggers a consistency issue:
<abbr title="Non-Governmental Organization">NGO</abbr><abbr title="Small Office Home Office">SOHO</abbr><abbr title="Human Resources">HR</abbr>Many users can't access the expansion of these abbreviations. I'd like to suggest avoiding the usage of
<abbr>+titlealtogether and expand on first use instead.The only case in this document where abbr + title is maybe acceptable is
<abbr title="World Wide Web Consortium">W3C</abbr>but that's only because most people reading this document already know what 'W3C' stands for.