Re: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Ben Buchanan]

If the glyph for No. (as outlined in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No.) is used, should this be in an
abbreviation element to explain it? It is an abbreviation, isn't it??
What do screen-readers make of this particular glyph, if anything?
Or should it be kept as No., which is quite common, and wrapped into an
abbreviation element with a class of contraction, and a title of number?


Personally I think glyphs/entities in HTML should have been tags with
alt or title attributes. There are plenty of glyphs with multiple
meanings and it would have been useful to be able to clarify usage.

So I'd be comfortable wrapping the glyph in .

cheers,

Ben

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Re: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Mordechai Peller]

Ben Buchanan wrote:

Personally I think glyphs/entities in HTML should have been tags with
alt or title attributes.
I strongly disagree. All glyphs have an agreed upon meaning as indicated 
by their context[1]. They are *NOT* abbreviations. Is a capital sigma a 
glyph representing summation or a letter in the Greek alphabet? And 
since all letters, numbers, punctuation, and other related symbols are 
glyphs, what you're are proposing (admittedly, taken to the extreme) is...
Thititle="The English letter s">s!?




[1]A long and thorough discussion of this can be found in "Gödel, 
Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid," by Douglas R. Hofstadter.



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Re: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Christian Montoya]

Ben Buchanan wrote:
> Personally I think glyphs/entities in HTML should have been tags with
> alt or title attributes.


Aren't glyphs not specific to HTML? They are codes for finding a
specific character on the user's machine, right? So why make them
something that depends on browser support/interpretation?

--
--
Christian Montoya
christianmontoya.net .. designtocss.com


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Re: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Chris Stratford]

I have to agree with you Mordechai - a very good point!


On 2/8/07, Mordechai Peller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


Ben Buchanan wrote:
> Personally I think glyphs/entities in HTML should have been tags with
> alt or title attributes.
I strongly disagree. All glyphs have an agreed upon meaning as indicated
by their context[1]. They are *NOT* abbreviations. Is a capital sigma a
glyph representing summation or a letter in the Greek alphabet? And
since all letters, numbers, punctuation, and other related symbols are
glyphs, what you're are proposing (admittedly, taken to the extreme) is...
This!?



[1]A long and thorough discussion of this can be found in "Gödel,
Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid," by Douglas R. Hofstadter.


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Re: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Dmitry Baranovskiy]

You are right Mordechai, but I think Ben was talking about “No.”, not  
about “№”. In first case abbreviation is a good thing, in  
second useless.


best regards,
Dmitry Baranovskiy


On 08/02/2007, at 9:32 AM, Mordechai Peller wrote:


Ben Buchanan wrote:

Personally I think glyphs/entities in HTML should have been tags with
alt or title attributes.
I strongly disagree. All glyphs have an agreed upon meaning as  
indicated by their context[1]. They are *NOT* abbreviations. Is a  
capital sigma a glyph representing summation or a letter in the  
Greek alphabet? And since all letters, numbers, punctuation, and  
other related symbols are glyphs, what you're are proposing  
(admittedly, taken to the extreme) is...
Thiabbr>s!?




[1]A long and thorough discussion of this can be found in "Gödel,  
Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid," by Douglas R. Hofstadter.



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Re: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Andrew Cunningham]

Christian Montoya wrote:

Ben Buchanan wrote:
> Personally I think glyphs/entities in HTML should have been tags with
> alt or title attributes.




I assume when Ben wrote "glyph" he meant "character". A glyph is a 
visual representation of character that can vary between languages, 
geographic regions and typographic traditions, etc.



If you used the Unicode character , this is a character (part of 
the data or text) and not an abbreviation.


If you use ,  or alternative 
character sequences then this could be considered an abbreviation I guess.



Aren't glyphs not specific to HTML? They are codes for finding a
specific character on the user's machine, right? So why make them
something that depends on browser support/interpretation?




--
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Re: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Ben Buchanan]

> Personally I think glyphs/entities in HTML should have been tags with
> alt or title attributes.
I strongly disagree. All glyphs have an agreed upon meaning as indicated
by their context[1]. They are *NOT* abbreviations. Is a capital sigma a
glyph representing summation or a letter in the Greek alphabet? And
since all letters, numbers, punctuation, and other related symbols are
glyphs, what you're are proposing (admittedly, taken to the extreme) is...
This!?


Hmm, guess I messed up the terminology. I'm not proposing anything like that.

What I'm talking about is unusual little shapes rendered to the screen
based on &blah; ;)

Some are relatively clear, for example the copyright symbol is not
ambiguous because it was created for a specific purpose and I can't
immediately think of any uncommon uses. But there are others which are
not so clear.

Think about the heart symbol. It's in UTF as "black hearts suit" or
something. But people use it to say "I [heart] unicode". Would it make
any sense to read out "I black hearts suit unicode"? The symbol has
been used to indicate the word "love".

So what I'm getting at is that the name of the symbol may not be the
same as the concept it communicates. Do people truly write "No. 12
Somewhere Street" meaning "Numero 12 Somewhere Street"? No, they mean
"Number 12 Somewhere Street" (well, in English-speaking nations
anyway).  In the same way, they might say "#12 Somewhere Street"... do
they want people to say "right, so you live at hash twelve Somewhere
Street"?


From a purist's point of view, people should never say "I [heart]

whatever" since that's not what the Black Hearts Suit symbol is for.
But we know that people do use it this way and will keep using it this
way.

Hence my opinion that there should be an optional method for declaring
a specific interpretation of the symbol (character, glyph, entity
wossname). I hope that's a clearer statement of what I was driving at
:)

cheers,

Ben

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Re: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Mordechai Peller]

Dmitry Baranovskiy wrote:

I think Ben was talking about “No.”, not about “№”.

Kat wrote:

If the glyph for No.


The preposition "for" suggests otherwise.


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Re: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Katrina]

Andrew Cunningham wrote:

Christian Montoya wrote:

Ben Buchanan wrote:
> Personally I think glyphs/entities in HTML should have been tags with
> alt or title attributes.




I assume when Ben wrote "glyph" he meant "character". A glyph is a 
visual representation of character that can vary between languages, 
geographic regions and typographic traditions, etc.


And browsers, the character comes out very differently between IE 6 and 
Firefox 1.5





If you used the Unicode character , this is a character (part of 
the data or text) and not an abbreviation.


BUT, at the same time, it is.

. - _ ^ & are not abbreviations, I accept that.

But No. is an abbreviation for number. It's just that there is a special 
character/glyph for that particular abbreviation. So do you mark it up 
as an abbreviation or not, or is the abbreviation implied in the use of 
that character?


Kat


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Re: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Andrew Cunningham]

Katrina wrote:

Andrew Cunningham wrote:

Christian Montoya wrote:

Ben Buchanan wrote:
> Personally I think glyphs/entities in HTML should have been tags with
> alt or title attributes.




I assume when Ben wrote "glyph" he meant "character". A glyph is a 
visual representation of character that can vary between languages, 
geographic regions and typographic traditions, etc.


And browsers, the character comes out very differently between IE 6 and 
Firefox 1.5




That is usually a font issue.



But No. is an abbreviation for number. It's just that there is a special 
character/glyph for that particular abbreviation. So do you mark it up 
as an abbreviation or not, or is the abbreviation implied in the use of 
that character?


not necessarily. when spoken or read aloud the symbol would not be 
pronounced.


other symbols I wouldn't classify as abbreviations would include 
mathematical operators, currency symbols, and numbers followed by an 
ordinal indicator.


They aren't abbreviations they are symbols representing a word or concept.



Kat


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Re: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Dmitry Baranovskiy]

So is “&” an abbreviation for “and”? It is ligature, that stands for  
“and”, but should we really mark it up as ? The next question  
is how screen readers will read text with special characters  
(№12345)?



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Re: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Ben Buchanan]

They aren't abbreviations they are symbols representing a word or concept.


They're sort of the ultimate in abbreviation when you think about it
that way ;) Reducing a whole concept to a symbol? Wild ;)

The issue that I'm ultimately thinking about is vocalisation, although
SEO might come into it as well.

eg. How do you get a screen reader to vocalise what the author
intended with a visual communication? The only available method that I
can think of is to wrap an ABBR around the item in question and
specify what you mean.

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--- evenly distributed. - William Gibson


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Re: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Andrew Cunningham]

Ben Buchanan wrote:



Think about the heart symbol. It's in UTF as "black hearts suit" or
something. But people use it to say "I [heart] unicode". Would it make
any sense to read out "I black hearts suit unicode"? The symbol has
been used to indicate the word "love".



actually I wouldn't use U+2665 BLACK HEART SUIT to represent "love" as 
it is what its name suggests, the symbol used to represent one of the 
four suits commonly used on playing cards. Its name and position in the 
Misc. symbols block indicate that.


If you wanted to use a symbol to represent "love" you would use a 
different unicode character, maybe U+2764 HEAVY BLACK HEART in the 
Dingbats block or one of the alternative Dingbats.



So what I'm getting at is that the name of the symbol may not be the
same as the concept it communicates. Do people truly write "No. 12
Somewhere Street" meaning "Numero 12 Somewhere Street"? No, they mean
"Number 12 Somewhere Street" (well, in English-speaking nations
anyway).  In the same way, they might say "#12 Somewhere Street"... do
they want people to say "right, so you live at hash twelve Somewhere
Street"?

 From a purist's point of view, people should never say "I [heart]
whatever" since that's not what the Black Hearts Suit symbol is for.
But we know that people do use it this way and will keep using it this
way.

Hence my opinion that there should be an optional method for declaring
a specific interpretation of the symbol (character, glyph, entity
wossname). I hope that's a clearer statement of what I was driving at
:)

cheers,

Ben




--
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Re: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Ben Buchanan]

If you wanted to use a symbol to represent "love" you would use a
different unicode character, maybe U+2764 HEAVY BLACK HEART in the
Dingbats block or one of the alternative Dingbats.


HEAVY BLACK HEART still isn't "love". I doubt anyone would get far
with a line like "I heavy black heart you!" :) ...well, it'd work for
an emo I guess ;)

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RE: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Ricky Onsman]

> So is "&" an abbreviation for "and"? It is ligature, that 
> stands for "and", but should we really mark it up as ? 

'+' is a ligature and a symbol for the word 'plus'. A screen reader should
say 'plus' when it finds '+'.

'&' is a ligature and a symbol for the word 'ampersand'. But a screen reader
should say 'and' when it finds '&'.

'x' can be a ligature when it's a symbol for the word 'times'. A screen
reader should say 'times' when it finds 'x' in the context of 11 x 5 = 55
(please God, let my maths be right).

'x' can be a ligature when it's a symbol for the word 'by'. A screen reader
should say 'by' when it finds 'x' in the context of 1024 x 768.

'x' can be a symbol for the word 'unknown', in which context it is not a
ligature. It can also be the letter 'x'. A screen reader should say 'ecks'
when it finds 'x' in these contexts.

None of these is an abbreviation.

'No.' is an abbreviation of the word 'number'. A screen reader should say
'number' when it finds 'No.'.

So how do we tell screen readers (and browsers) which is the right function,
depending on the context?

Ricky



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Re: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Patrick H. Lauke]

Ben Buchanan wrote:

Reducing a whole concept to a symbol? Wild ;)


In more general terms, that's exactly what language does...


eg. How do you get a screen reader to vocalise what the author
intended with a visual communication? The only available method that I
can think of is to wrap an ABBR around the item in question and
specify what you mean.


That's because HTML has such a limited vocabulary of available elements. 
The more "correct" (although admittedly not ready for widespread use in 
the here and now) way would be to use additional vocabularies (in the 
case of use of greek letters in mathematical formulae, MathML or similar 
for instance) and/or to tie lookup tables for glyph/vocalisation 
intended for a particular document in metadata or something like a 
linked RDF.


Debating which of the severely lacking HTML elements would be most 
pervertable in order to achieve something that wasn't taken into account 
in HTML's design is certainly interesting, but futile (IMHO, of course).


P
--
Patrick H. Lauke
__
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[latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.]
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Re: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Patrick H. Lauke]

Ricky Onsman wrote:


So how do we tell screen readers (and browsers) which is the right function,
depending on the context?


As long as the language we use to mark up content does not natively 
cater for this infusion of meaning, we can either hack around the 
shortcomings of HTML by perverting some of its constructs (overloading 
the use of ABBR - on a tangent, this is the same thing that's happening 
with some microformat usage, such as that suggested by Tantek for 
marking up dates...a very inelegant, and definitely not screen reader 
friendly, usage) or rely on heuristics in user agents to make educated 
guesses as to what the intended meaning is. Or, as is already the case 
for sighted users, we leave it up to the reader/user to filter what's 
presented by the user agent at face value and draw their own conclusions 
based on their interpretation of the context (which, in most cases, 
would be far more accurate than any guesses by a machine).


P
--
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__
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[latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.]
www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.uk
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Re: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Ben Buchanan]

[snip excellent examples of all the meanings of x]

None of these is an abbreviation.


Maybe not, but ABBR is the closest thing we've got in HTML. After
that, we're left with harsh language
(http://www.maxdesign.com.au/2006/02/03/harsh-language/).


'No.' is an abbreviation of the word 'number'. A screen reader should say
'number' when it finds 'No.'.
So how do we tell screen readers (and browsers) which is the right function,
depending on the context?


This is why I said that we should have had the ability to add a title
to symbols in HTML. One symbol/entity can have more than one use in
language/communication/society. We need a way to express those
different uses.

--
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--- evenly distributed. - William Gibson


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Re: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Andrew Cunningham]

Ben Buchanan wrote:

[snip excellent examples of all the meanings of x]

None of these is an abbreviation.


Maybe not, but ABBR is the closest thing we've got in HTML. After
that, we're left with harsh language
(http://www.maxdesign.com.au/2006/02/03/harsh-language/).


Or maybe more precise use of Unicode, e.g.

U+0078 - LATIN SMALL LETTER X

U+00D7 - MULTIPLICATION SIGN

U+2179 - SMALL ROMAN NUMERAL TEN

U+2A2F - VECTOR OR CROSS PRODUCT


etc.


Andrew

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Re: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Dmitry Baranovskiy]

'x' can be a ligature when it's a symbol for the word 'times'. A  
screen
reader should say 'times' when it finds 'x' in the context of 11 x  
5 = 55

(please God, let my maths be right).

'x' can be a ligature when it's a symbol for the word 'by'. A  
screen reader

should say 'by' when it finds 'x' in the context of 1024 x 768.


Actually in both cases you shouldn't use ‘x’, but × or ×

In this cases ‘×’ is a shortcut to ‘times’ and ‘by’, but technically  
we can’t call it abbreviation. We could use abbreviation as closest  
by meaning element, but it sounds little bit dirty, isn't it?


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RE: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Ricky Onsman]

> Actually in both cases you shouldn't use ‘x’, but × or ×
> 
Good point. But will a screen reader find '×' and say 'times', or for
that matter Andrew's unicode alternatives? 

If so, I'd be as happy to use that as I am to use '&' instead of '&'.  

> In this cases ‘×’ is a shortcut to ‘times’ and ‘by’, but 
> technically we can’t call it abbreviation. We could use 
> abbreviation as closest by meaning element, but it sounds 
> little bit dirty, isn't it?
> 
Use dirty code or use harsh language. Tough call.

Ricky



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Re: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Ben Buchanan]

> Actually in both cases you shouldn't use 'x', but × or ×
Good point. But will a screen reader find '×' and say 'times', or for
that matter Andrew's unicode alternatives?


There's a key question. Anyone got a screen reader handy to test it?
Sadly I don't...

--
--- 
--- The future has arrived; it's just not
--- evenly distributed. - William Gibson


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Re: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Dmitry Baranovskiy]

> Actually in both cases you shouldn't use 'x', but × or ×
Good point. But will a screen reader find '×' and say  
'times', or for

that matter Andrew's unicode alternatives?


There's a key question. Anyone got a screen reader handy to test it?
Sadly I don't...


Add to this “Will search engines correctly understand such a  
symbols?” The answer is “No”.


Compare:

3×4 http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=3%D74&btnG=Search&meta=
3x4 http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=3x4&btnG=Search&meta=
3 4 http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=3+4&btnG=Search&meta=

As you can see first and last results are equal, which means that  
Google ignore × symbol. Try this two links as well:


fl as ligature		http://www.google.com.au/search? 
hl=en&q=flickr&btnG=Search&meta=
fl as two letters	http://www.google.com.au/search? 
hl=en&q=flickr&btnG=Search&meta=


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Re: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Christian Montoya]

On 2/8/07, Dmitry Baranovskiy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>> > Actually in both cases you shouldn't use 'x', but × or ×
>> Good point. But will a screen reader find '×' and say
>> 'times', or for
>> that matter Andrew's unicode alternatives?
>
> There's a key question. Anyone got a screen reader handy to test it?
> Sadly I don't...

Add to this "Will search engines correctly understand such a
symbols?" The answer is "No".

Compare:

3×4 http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=3%D74&btnG=Search&meta=
3x4 http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=3x4&btnG=Search&meta=
3 4 http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=3+4&btnG=Search&meta=

As you can see first and last results are equal, which means that
Google ignore × symbol. Try this two links as well:



Why do we care if Google understands the ligature? 3x4 doesn't seem
like a keyword I would optimize for when it comes to SEO...

--
--
Christian Montoya
christianmontoya.net .. designtocss.com


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RE: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Patrick Lauke]

> Dmitry Baranovskiy

> Add to this “Will search engines correctly understand such a  
> symbols?” The answer is “No”.
> 
> Compare:
> 
> 3×4   
> http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=3%D74&btnG=Search&meta=
> 3x4   
> http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=3x4&btnG=Search&meta=
> 3 4   
> http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=3+4&btnG=Search&meta=
> 
> As you can see first and last results are equal, which means that  
> Google ignore × symbol. Try this two links as well:

It's the usual chicken/egg problem: once most people start using the correct 
way, Google will have to adapt its algorithms. But many authors will be wary of 
using it until Google does it first. Rinse, repeat.

P

Patrick H. Lauke
Web Editor
External Relations Division
University of Salford
Room 113, Faraday House
Salford, Greater Manchester
M5 4WT
UK

T +44 (0) 161 295 4779
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

www.salford.ac.uk

A GREATER MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY  

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Re: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Andrew Cunningham]

 


On Thu, February 8, 2007 4:51 pm, Dmitry Baranovskiy wrote:

> fl as ligaturehttp://www.google.com.au/search?
>
hl=en&q=flickr&btnG=Search&meta=
> fl
as two letters  http://www.google.com.au/search?
>
hl=en&q=flickr&btnG=Search&meta=

the fl ligature is
probably a bad example. the fl ligature is an optional ligature and in
theory shouldn't be in the data, instead you should have the leter f
followed by the letter l. Its up to the font and font rendering system to
ligate the sequence for visual rendering if this type of ligation is
supported.

a better example may be the ae ligature which would
be an optional ligature in some languages and an actual alphabetic
character in other languages.

-- 
Andrew Cunningham
Research and Development Coordinator
Vicnet
State Library of
Victoria
Australia

[EMAIL PROTECTED]




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RE: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Ricky Onsman]

> Why do we care if Google understands the ligature? 3x4 
> doesn't seem like a keyword I would optimize for when it 
> comes to SEO...
>
There are lots of terms that might not seem like a keyword you would
optimise for - until you get a client for whom it makes a difference.
There's a clear SEO connection between 61x91.5 and the most popular posters
in the world (see Wordtracker). One of my clients in the very cut-throat
online poster selling market benefits from this (so don't tell anyone).

This doesn't even touch on Dmitry's point that Google ignores × -
although I did get a bit more joy with &, which would seem to back up
Patrick's point:

> It's the usual chicken/egg problem: once most people 
> start using the correct way, Google will have to adapt 
> its algorithms. But many authors will be wary of using it 
> until Google does it first. Rinse, repeat.

So let's assume that the more semantic, valid sites we get out there, the
better Google will index them and refine its algorithms.

That takes us back to what this list is more concerned with: standards, and
thus validity, semantic code and accessibility. 

I'd still like to know if using character entity references and/or unicode
for symbols and special characters will actually convey web content more
clearly to people who use screen readers. 

BTW, there's a nice list of character entity references, with name,
character, unicode code point, HTML Standard and description at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_XML_and_HTML_character_entity_reference
s. 

Ricky



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RE: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[michael.brockington]

I'm afraid your test doesn't answer the question that (I think) you were trying 
to ask, which is whether Google et al are able to _index_ these characters 
correctly. Your test merely shows that Google ignores them in an input query, 
not in the index itself. Perhaps some use of the advanced search options would 
allow a better test?

A site search engine that I work with regularly does have difficulties with 
this, but mainly because it is hard to define the correct behaviour for all 
possible situations: should an accented character be stored as different to the 
same character without the accent? The answer is basically 'which will the user 
search for?'  In one case it is necessary to treat all accented characters as 
though they were the same base character, and in the other case they must be 
kept distinct.

Mike 

> -Original Message-
> From: listdad@webstandardsgroup.org 
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dmitry Baranovskiy
> Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2007 5:52 AM
> To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org
> Subject: Re: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph
> 
> >> > Actually in both cases you shouldn't use 'x', but × 
> or ×
> >> Good point. But will a screen reader find '×' and say  
> >> 'times', or for
> >> that matter Andrew's unicode alternatives?
> >
> > There's a key question. Anyone got a screen reader handy to test it?
> > Sadly I don't...
> 
> Add to this “Will search engines correctly understand such a  
> symbols?” The answer is “No”.
> 
> Compare:
> 
> 3×4   
> http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=3%D74&btnG=Search&meta=
> 3x4   
> http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=3x4&btnG=Search&meta=
> 3 4   
> http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=3+4&btnG=Search&meta=
> 
> As you can see first and last results are equal, which means that  
> Google ignore × symbol. Try this two links as well:
> 
> fl as ligaturehttp://www.google.com.au/search? 
> hl=en&q=flickr&btnG=Search&meta=
> fl as two letters http://www.google.com.au/search? 
> hl=en&q=flickr&btnG=Search&meta=
> 
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> 

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Re: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Andrew Maben]

On Feb 7, 2007, at 8:44 PM, Andrew Cunningham wrote:


Would it make
any sense to read out "I black hearts suit unicode"? The symbol has
been used to indicate the word "love".


FWIW, I happened to be reading the paper yesterday where the film  
whose title is represented in its ads and title on screen by "I U 
+2665 Huckabees" was referred to as "I Heart Huckabees" rather than  
"I Love Huckabees".


Andrew

109b SE 4th Av
Gainesville
FL 32601

Cell: 352-870-6661

http://www.andrewmaben.com
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

"In a well designed user interface, the user should not need  
instructions."




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Re: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Nick Fitzsimons]

On 8 Feb 2007, at 14:49:26, Andrew Maben wrote:


On Feb 7, 2007, at 8:44 PM, Andrew Cunningham wrote:


Would it make
any sense to read out "I black hearts suit unicode"? The symbol has
been used to indicate the word "love".


FWIW, I happened to be reading the paper yesterday where the film  
whose title is represented in its ads and title on screen by "I U 
+2665 Huckabees" was referred to as "I Heart Huckabees" rather than  
"I Love Huckabees".




Its title is indeed "I Heart Huckabees". From the IMDB trivia page  
for the film:


'Many theater managers mistakenly wrote the film's title on marquees  
and in showtime listings as "I Love Huckabees". This is most likely  
because on all promotional material and in the film itself the title  
is written with a heart symbol instead of the word "heart".'


Perhaps the theater managers should have used a screenreader? ;-)

Cheers,

Nick.
--
Nick Fitzsimons
http://www.nickfitz.co.uk/





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Re: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Christian Montoya]

On 2/8/07, Dmitry Baranovskiy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>> > Actually in both cases you shouldn't use 'x', but × or ×
>> Good point. But will a screen reader find '×' and say
>> 'times', or for
>> that matter Andrew's unicode alternatives?
>
> There's a key question. Anyone got a screen reader handy to test it?
> Sadly I don't...

Add to this "Will search engines correctly understand such a
symbols?" The answer is "No".

Compare:

3×4 http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=3%D74&btnG=Search&meta=
3x4 http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=3x4&btnG=Search&meta=
3 4 http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=3+4&btnG=Search&meta=

As you can see first and last results are equal, which means that
Google ignore × symbol.


Today I searched for:

"prove that any string of length l is an instance of 2^l different schemas"

and I got a direct match at:

"Prove that any string of length l is an instance
of 2l different schemas"

But changing the search string to:

"prove that any string of length l is an instance of 2l different schemas"

Returns the same match.

It seems, therefore, that Google just ignores unusual characters and
typographic tags. Both a shame... IMO, this is a shortcoming on the
part of Googlebot.

Then again, the search results are *not* totally identical... the
first returns the  match as result #1, the second as result #2.
In the second, result #1 is a PDF.

Seems like something that ought to be deferred to the Google team for
an explanation. Regardless, understanding a user's meaning in a single
text input is always hard.

--
--
Christian Montoya
christianmontoya.net .. designtocss.com


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RE: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Moira Clunie]

 
> I'd still like to know if using character entity references 
> and/or unicode for symbols and special characters will 
> actually convey web content more clearly to people who use 
> screen readers. 

Sometimes, sometimes not. I have JAWS 6.1 and 7.0 installed - both know about 
some Unicode characters and not others. JAWS reads a short name for the 
character, not usually the full description from the standards, e.g. for U+00D4 
(Ô) JAWS says O circumflex (not "Latin capital letter o with circumflex").

& some more examples...

for U+00D7 (×) JAWS says times
for U+2665 (♥) JAWS says nothing.
for U+2116 (the numero sign №) JAWS says nothing
for U+2122 (™) JAWS says trademark

JAWS Unicode support was meant to have improved significantly in version 7.0 
and might be better again in 8.0, but lots of people who use screen readers 
don't have the most recent version. Hope this helps,

Moira Clunie
Accessible Formats Developer
Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind
Awhina House, 4 Maunsell Road, Newmarket, Auckland
Private Bag 99941, Newmarket, Auckland
DDI +64 9 355 6938
Fax +64 9 355 6960
[EMAIL PROTECTED]




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RE: [WSG] No. abbreviation glyph

[Ricky Onsman]

That is very helpful, Moira.

Kat's original query was:

> If the glyph for No. (as outlined in Wikipedia:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No.) is used, should this be in an
> abbreviation element to explain it? It is an abbreviation, isn't it??
>
> What do screen-readers make of this particular glyph, if anything?
>
> Or should it be kept as No., which is quite common, and wrapped into an
> abbreviation element with a class of contraction, and a title of number?

In theory, all that's needed to represent No. is to use № - the HTML
Entity (decimal) for the Unicode Numero symbol. This gives all browsers,
screen readers, search engines and various bits of software every chance to
interpret the information correctly. Screenreaders can clearly be set to
make decisions about what to say (as in Moira's O circumflex example), so
can be instructed by their publishers to pronounce this as "number". You
shouldn't need to wrap an ABBREV around it, which is good because while it
/is/ an abbreviation of the word "numero", it isn't an abbreviation of the
concept to be conveyed, ie the word "number".

It also means there should be no confusion about "x" as "times", "by",
"unknown", "Roman numeral ten" or the letter "x" as each has its own Unicode
and HTML Entity. Sighted people can judge the meaning by the context while
screenreaders can pronounce the appropriate meaning.

However. At least one widely used screenreader says nothing when confronted
by the Unicode for "numero". It also isn't supported by all font sets,
although the most widely used seem to include it. Google doesn't seem to
translate HTML entities at all, treating them simply as character strings. 

It may therefore be practical to wrap the Numero sign in an element that
describes it. The ABBREV element seems to be the best candidate.
 
So the answers for Kat are yes, no, probably nothing and possibly.

Ricky 

> > I'd still like to know if using character entity references and/or 
> > unicode for symbols and special characters will actually convey web 
> > content more clearly to people who use screen readers.
> 
> Sometimes, sometimes not. I have JAWS 6.1 and 7.0 installed - 
> both know about some Unicode characters and not others. JAWS 
> reads a short name for the character, not usually the full 
> description from the standards, e.g. for U+00D4 (Ô) 
> JAWS says O circumflex (not "Latin capital letter o with circumflex").
> 
> & some more examples...
> 
> for U+00D7 (×) JAWS says times
> for U+2665 (♥) JAWS says nothing.
> for U+2116 (the numero sign №) JAWS says nothing for U+2122 
> (™) JAWS says trademark
> 
> JAWS Unicode support was meant to have improved significantly 
> in version 7.0 and might be better again in 8.0, but lots of 
> people who use screen readers don't have the most recent 
> version. Hope this helps,
> 
> Moira Clunie
> Accessible Formats Developer
> Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind Awhina House, 4 
> Maunsell Road, Newmarket, Auckland Private Bag 99941, 
> Newmarket, Auckland DDI +64 9 355 6938 Fax +64 9 355 6960 
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]



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