Re: Is "XML" an abbreviation or an acronym?

> use <abbr>SQL</abbr> if you want you
> audio-browser to say ess-cue-ell, and use
> <acronym>SQL</acronym> if you want
> it to say "Sequel"

Not quite.

This is a fantastic article:

  http://redish.net/content/papers/interactions.html

A couple researchers sat down with 16 blind people to see how they use
the Web.  Their results are very enlightening.  Here's one of the
things they found:

Unusual words, acronyms, and abbreviations confuse screen readers, and
screen readers often read them wrong, e.g.

  Word on the screen           What the screen reader says

  homepage                             hommapodge
  LiveHelp                             livahelp
  MEDLINE                              Medlynepalus
  FY                                   fie
  VA                                   va (like the Spanish for "go")


So, independent of whether you consider XML to be an abbreviation or an
acronym, do not depend on the tag alone:

   <acronym>XML</acronym>
or
   <abbr>XML</abbr>


For accessibility, always use the title attribute:

   <acronym title="Extensible Markup Language">XML</acronym>

or

   <abbr title="Extensible Markup Language">XML</abbr>

/Roger

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