Acronym

The Acronym tag is contained within the "Title" element and enables assistive technology (and other interpreters such as spelling checkers and translation programs) to substitute text for acryonyms. It can also aid search engines in indexing content. Although it is not currently supported by all screen readers or text browsers, it is worthwhile to code the tag in anticipation of its future adoption. JAWS 5.0 supports this option.

Code Example:

<acronym title="Website Content Accessibility 
Guidelines">W C A G</acronym>

Browsers

Ignored by all versions of Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer.

Adaptive Technology

Screen readers are inconsistent in how they interpret acronyms, sometimes pronouncing letters individually and other times pronouncing them phonetically as a group. To be certain that letters will be pronounced individually, either separate them with spaces, for example as "W C A G" rather than "WCAG," which will be pronounced "whucag," or test them using adaptive technology. An alternative is to put periods after letters, as in "W.C.A.G.," in which case the letters will be pronounced "W period C period A period G period."

Also, follow accepted grammatical rules for acronyms. Precede the first instance of an abbreviation on a page by its title, for example: "Web Content Accessibilities Guidelines (W C A G)."