Best accessibility practice? - HTML markup to represent dates

[Andy Dingley]

I'm using this at present:
<p title="Publicat ion date" >[28/09/2005 15:00]</p>

Works fine on screen, but Fangs/Jaws just reads it as "left bracket
twenty-eight slash zero slash two thousand five fifteen colon zero right
bracket" Really it needs something more to indicate that it _is_ a
date.

The [...] brackets would be better done with CSS, :before and content: ,
but the boss wants it to work under IE too. The site is firmly UK
based, so d/m/y is necessary and won't be getting internationalis ed.

So, what's the best markup for representing a date, with good
accessibility to screen readers?

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Re: Best accessibility practice? - HTML markup to represent dates

Andy Dingley wrote:
[color=blue]
> I'm using this at present:
> <p title="Publicat ion date" >[28/09/2005 15:00]</p>[/color]

Such a date notation is alienating to more than half of mankind, and it
is guaranteed to cause serious problems at least when the day number is
less than 13, since then a considerable minority (including most people
in the U.S.) will understand in a manner different from the intended
meaning.

Ideally, an author would enter a date in a format he finds suitable,
have it automatically transferred to an internationaliz ed format (such
as ISO 8601) internally, and user agents would display the date to each
user in a format chosen by the user. This format might have to be
different for different content languages, if the user so chooses.

We are very far from such a situation in HTML authoring, partly because
HTML lacks any markup for dates (as well as times, monetary amounts,
decimal numbers, and other data that should be internationaliz ed
internally, localized externally).

The conclusion is that in practice, there are just two sensible ways of
presenting dates in HTML documents:
- use a language-dependent notation where the month is expressed using a
word, or perhaps a conventional alphabetic abbreviation, e.g. "September
28, 2005" or, if conciseness really matters, "Sep 28, 2005"
- use the ISO 8601 date notation, such as "2005-09-28", usually with an
explanation or pointer to an explanation of the notation; this is often
the best approach in tables, chronological lists, and multilingual material.

What about the title? Yes, what about it? It is an optional sweetener,
nothing to be relied upon. If the user does not know and cannot deduce
from other information that [28/09/2005 15:00] is publication date and
time for something (which?), title="Publicat ion date" will not help
much. People who are puzzled by some information won't usually move the
mouse to see if there's a tooltip, especially when the text looks no
different from normal text and makes no suggestion "mouse over me!".

(As an aside, for some decades I though that "date" only means time
specified with a granularity of a day, i.e. identification of day,
month, and year. Only later did I realize that my understanding of
English was imperfect in this respect: "date" may mean that, or it may
mean "date and time", i.e. time specified with a granularity of a
second, or even more exactly. I would still refrain from assuming that
everyone knows the extended meaning of "date".)

Regarding the use of markup, I don't think [28/09/2005 15:00]
constitutes a paragraph even under a liberal interpretation. It's better
to use <div> or <span> markup than semantically wrong markup, like <p>
for a non-paragraph.
[color=blue]
> Works fine on screen, but Fangs/Jaws just reads it as "left bracket
> twenty-eight slash zero slash two thousand five fifteen colon zero right
> bracket" Really it needs something more to indicate that it _is_ a
> date.[/color]

We would need such markup, but we have to do without.
[color=blue]
> The [...] brackets would be better done with CSS, :before and content: ,
> but the boss wants it to work under IE too.[/color]

Quite a clever boss you have.

What makes you think you need brackets in the first place? Will all
readers understand them the intended way?
[color=blue]
> The site is firmly UK
> based, so d/m/y is necessary and won't be getting internationalis ed.[/color]

Wrong idea. When you're on the World Wide Web, you cannot know the
language, race, sex, or species of your visitors. You can just assume,
and you might mostly assume right, which means your assumptions will be
false at times.

Surely people in the United Kingdom understand the notation
September 28, 2005, and understand it unambiguously?
Whether they understand, say, 11/09/2005 the way you want depends on
their background; if someone just moved from the U.S., well,...
In fact, I'm afraid the United Kingdom has been Americanized in many
ways so much that users can be uncertain about the interpretetatio n of
notations - how could they know that your page doesn't just use a date
notation that software written in the U.S. spits out?

(Besides, [28/09/2005 15:00] is far from traditional British style, too,
with the leading zero and with the 24-hour clock. That is, it isn't even
stylish. Anyway, make clarity and unambiguity the first priority, at
least for dates.)
[color=blue]
> So, what's the best markup for representing a date, with good
> accessibility to screen readers?[/color]

<div>Publishe d in September 28, 2005.</div>
(It's better to use September than Sep, since a screen reader will
hardly know or guess that here "Sep" should be read as an abbreviation.
Using <abbr title="Septembe r">Sep</abbr> would mostly be pointless,
though perhaps theoretically correct by some book. It would distract
many people using a graphic browser that shows the abbreviation with a
dotted underline.)

[Mark Parnell]

Re: Best accessibility practice? - HTML markup to represent dates

In our last episode, Andy Dingley <dingbat@codesm iths.com> pronounced to
comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html,alt.comp.accessibility:
[color=blue]
> <p title="Publicat ion date" >[28/09/2005 15:00]</p>[/color]
<snip>[color=blue]
> The [...] brackets would be better done with CSS, :before and content: ,[/color]

They would be better dropped altogether IMHO.
[color=blue]
> but the boss wants it to work under IE too.[/color]

Understandably.
[color=blue]
> So, what's the best markup for representing a date, with good
> accessibility to screen readers?[/color]

Write it out in full, something along these lines:

28th September, 2005 at 3pm.

--
Mark Parnell

http://clarkecomputers.com.au

[Thomas Jespersen]

Re: Best accessibility practice? - HTML markup to represent dates

On Thu, 29 Sep 2005 00:18:57 +0100, Andy Dingley wrote:
[color=blue]
> I'm using this at present:
> <p title="Publicat ion date" >[28/09/2005 15:00]</p>[/color]

That is not only a problem for screenreaders but also for other browsers
because some countries use MM/DD/YYYY and others use DD/MM/YYYY format
which can make it pretty hard to guess what date you are talking about.

So my suggestion is to write it out fully:

28 September 2005 at 3 PM

--
Now Playing:
Rod Modell - Grand Bend

[Jake]

Re: Best accessibility practice? - HTML markup to represent dates

In message <st8mj15sohm7es ucch5ro1o9p059e 0ufb7@4ax.com>, Andy Dingley
<dingbat@codesm iths.com> writes[color=blue]
>I'm using this at present:
><p title="Publicat ion date" >[28/09/2005 15:00]</p>
>
>Works fine on screen, but Fangs/Jaws just reads it as "left bracket
>twenty-eight slash zero slash two thousand five fifteen colon zero right
>bracket" Really it needs something more to indicate that it _is_ a
>date.
>
>The [...] brackets would be better done with CSS, :before and content: ,
>but the boss wants it to work under IE too. The site is firmly UK
>based, so d/m/y is necessary and won't be getting internationalis ed.
>
>So, what's the best markup for representing a date, with good
>accessibilit y to screen readers?[/color]

Or in HPR (3.04)

"twenty-eight divided by nine divided by two-thousand-and-five fifteen
colon zero zero"

No commonality amongst readers, then ;-)

So. The only 'safe' way to write it would be a variation on:

<p title="Publicat ion date" >28th September, 2005 at 3pm.</p>

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------

In an ideal world we'd probably write it as:
<p title="Publicat ion date" ><date form="dmyt">[28/09/2005
15:00]</date></p> or something similar.

UAs would then speak it/display it according to local usage.

Regards.

--
Jake (jake@gododdin. demon.co.uk -- just a 'spam trap' mail address)

[Andy Dingley]

Re: Best accessibility practice? - HTML markup to represent dates

Andy Dingley wrote:
[color=blue]
> so d/m/y is necessary and won't be getting internationalis ed.[/color]

Thanks for your comments, even though (this being Usenet) they were
less than useful 8-(

The site _will_ present visible content in the form "[21/09/2005
15:00]"
This is not my choice, it's what the dezyner called for. Yes, there's
an internationalis ation issue. Yes the brackets are eye-candy. Yes, the
leading zero is somewhat odd for UK tradition. However none of these
issues are even up for debate - this is the design, this is what it
_must_ look like. RFC2119 applies.

[Reinder Verlinde]

Re: Best accessibility practice? - HTML markup to represent dates

In article <1127986596.036 243.194370@z14g 2000cwz.googleg roups.com>,
"Andy Dingley" <dingbat@codesm iths.com> wrote:
[color=blue]
> Thanks for your comments, even though (this being Usenet) they were
> less than useful 8-([/color]

You should be more grateful. You did get some feedback on how other
screenreaders read this. You also did get good feedback on why
'[21/09/2005 15:00]' is a bad idea.
[color=blue]
> The site _will_ present visible content in the form "[21/09/2005
> 15:00]"
> This is not my choice, it's what the dezyner called for.[/color]

Reread your question (article
<st8mj15sohm7es ucch5ro1o9p059e 0ufb7@4ax.com>) , and answer us how we
should know from that post that changing the looks of the date is
unacceptable.

With this extra bit of info, I think the problem is unsolvable with
current technology.

We could try to work around the problem, though. Would it be acceptable
to have a user preference (stylesheet change?) that changes the visible
form of the date?

Would it be acceptable to present the date twice (for example once in
the required form, and once as white-on-white, really small, or
whatever, so that only screen-readers would see it?

Neither solution would be good, but they could be better than doing
nothing.

Reinder

[Lachlan Hunt]

Re: Best accessibility practice? - HTML markup to represent dates

Andy Dingley wrote:[color=blue]
> I'm using this at present:
> <p title="Publicat ion date" >[28/09/2005 15:00]</p>
> ...
> So, what's the best markup for representing a date, with good
> accessibility to screen readers?[/color]

Take a look at the hCalendar microformat, it may be suitable for your needs.

http://microformats.org/wiki/hcalendar

--
Lachlan Hunt

http://lachy.id.au/

http://GetFirefox.com/ Rediscover the Web
http://GetThunderbird.com/ Reclaim your Inbox

[Alan J. Flavell]

Re: Best accessibility practice? - HTML markup to represent dates

On Thu, 29 Sep 2005, Andy Dingley wrote:
[color=blue]
> Andy Dingley wrote:
>[color=green]
> > so d/m/y is necessary and won't be getting internationalis ed.[/color]
>
> Thanks for your comments, even though (this being Usenet) they were
> less than useful 8-([/color]

On the contrary, they will be useful for all those readers who care to
learn from them.
[color=blue]
> The site _will_ present visible content in the form "[21/09/2005
> 15:00]"
> This is not my choice, it's what the dezyner called for.[/color]

It doesn't change the facts of the WWW, though.
[color=blue]
> Yes, there's an internationalis ation issue. Yes the brackets are
> eye-candy. Yes, the leading zero is somewhat odd for UK tradition.
> However none of these issues are even up for debate[/color]

Welcome to usenet. I'm surprised at your reaction to this - it's not
as if you haven't been around for quite a while already.

It was an interesting question, and usenet discussed it, with some
informative results. I *can* say that from a fairly impartial
position, since I didn't really get involved on this particular
thread.

The fact that you now say you can't really apply anything that you may
have learned from it, is your problem, not ours; but usenet never was
a mere help desk, as you well know.

have fun

[Andy Dingley]

Re: Best accessibility practice? - HTML markup to represent dates

Lachlan Hunt wrote:
[color=blue]
> Take a look at the hCalendar microformat,[/color]

Thanks! Not sure yet if I can use it (although I'm hopeful) but that's
certainly an interesting thing to bear in mind.

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Re: Best accessibility practice? - HTML markup to represent dates

Andy Dingley wrote:
[color=blue]
> The site _will_ present visible content in the form "[21/09/2005
> 15:00]"
> This is not my choice, it's what the dezyner called for.[/color]

You can and should explain the implications to anyone who is responsible
for the decision, instead of trying to alleviate the consequences
(especially since any achievable alleviation would be in a grotesque
disproportion to the damage caused by the decision).

Don't try to hide their mistakes. It won't help anyone.

The best you could achieve is probably title=
"The publication date is the twenty-first of September in
the year two thousand five at three o'clock PM"
and it would help only on browsers that actually make that text
available to the user, and mainly in aural presentation.

You don't want to do that. Especially since it would also disturb many
people, in addition to helping some.
[color=blue]
> However none of these
> issues are even up for debate - this is the design, this is what it
> _must_ look like. RFC2119 applies.[/color]

Don't be ridiculous. RFC 2119 applies to RFCs, and you know that.

[Andy Dingley]

Re: Best accessibility practice? - HTML markup to represent dates

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
[color=blue]
> You can and should explain the implications to anyone who is responsible
> for the decision, instead of trying to alleviate the consequences[/color]

They're a paper-based magazine publisher. I'm still fighting the
"enhancemen t" to switch to pixel-sized fonts and browser-snigging to
decide on what size to use.

My "number one ultra important nothing else must be done until it's
fixed" bug at present is the fact that text sizes are slightly
different on IE and Firefox. The fact that they're also going to vary
between screens, versions, user settings etc. is still a long way from
registering. And don't mention the "right click here to save video
file" alt texts on the thumbnails. So although I might _like_ to
question the date format, it's not a practical proposition for any
earth-bound non avian-pig dependent meaning of "practical" .

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Re: Best accessibility practice? - HTML markup to represent dates

"Andy Dingley" <dingbat@codesm iths.com> wrote:
[color=blue]
> My "number one ultra important nothing else must be done until it's
> fixed" bug at present is the fact that text sizes are slightly
> different on IE and Firefox.[/color]

Have you already told them how to achieve global totalitarian dictatorship?
(It's the only way to come even close to guaranteeing that everyone sees
their text in exactly the same size. But you know this, don't you.)
[color=blue]
> And don't mention the "right click here to save video
> file" alt texts on the thumbnails.[/color]

I won't, since you did.
[color=blue]
> So although I might _like_ to
> question the date format, it's not a practical proposition for any
> earth-bound non avian-pig dependent meaning of "practical" .[/color]

Au contraire. It seems that the only practical proposition is to tell them
that what they ask for is impossible to achieve and would be completely
wrong if it were possible. The wrongly fixed data format is apparently just
a small factor in the catastrophe, but it's still a part of it. I'm sorry
if you cannot afford to tell them all that (no need to say that they'd hire
someone else - that much is obvious).

But don't expect us to help you in wasting time in doing some pointless
cosmetic or theoretizing changes that would have at most a minuscule impact
on the (in)accessibili ty, and an impact in an unknown direction.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
Pages about Web authoring: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www.html

[Matt Silberstein]

Re: Best accessibility practice? - HTML markup to represent dates

On Thu, 29 Sep 2005 08:02:44 +0300, in
comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html , "Jukka K. Korpela"
<jkorpela@cs.tu t.fi> in <dhfsh9$9v4$1@p hys-news1.kolumbus. fi> wrote:

[snip]
[color=blue]
>The conclusion is that in practice, there are just two sensible ways of
>presenting dates in HTML documents:
>- use a language-dependent notation where the month is expressed using a
>word, or perhaps a conventional alphabetic abbreviation, e.g. "September
>28, 2005" or, if conciseness really matters, "Sep 28, 2005"[/color]

Strunk and While argue for 28 Sept 2005. Such a date does not need any
punctuation since the numbers are separated by letters. I write the
S&K version.
[color=blue]
>- use the ISO 8601 date notation, such as "2005-09-28", usually with an
>explanation or pointer to an explanation of the notation; this is often
>the best approach in tables, chronological lists, and multilingual material.[/color]

I like 2005-09-28 because it self sorts. But I am lazy.

[snip]

--
Matt Silberstein

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[Dr John Stockton]

Re: Best accessibility practice? - HTML markup to represent dates

JRS: In article <dhfsh9$9v4$1@p hys-news1.kolumbus. fi>, dated Thu, 29
Sep 2005 08:02:44, seen in news:comp.infos ystems.www.authoring.html,
Jukka K. Korpela <jkorpela@cs.tu t.fi> posted :[color=blue]
>Andy Dingley wrote:
>[color=green]
>> I'm using this at present:
>> <p title="Publicat ion date" >[28/09/2005 15:00]</p>[/color]
>
>Such a date notation is alienating to more than half of mankind,[/color]

If you mean the half that includes the Chinese, I doubt whether they are
that intolerant. AIUI, unlike others, they no longer consider all
outsiders to be *unspeakable* barbarians; I think they'd just sigh at
the backwardness of the West.


[color=blue]
>Surely people in the United Kingdom understand the notation
>September 28, 2005, and understand it unambiguously?[/color]

Yes, but there's no need to use a notation tainted by Americanism on a
British site, where 28th September 2005 / 28 Sept 2005 would be natural
and comprehensible even by visitors from elsewhere.

[color=blue]
><div>Publish ed in September 28, 2005.</div>[/color]

<div>Publishe d on 28th September 2005.</div> // "on" is not needed

Putting I & O adjacent on the keyboard was NOT a good idea.

--
© John Stockton, Surrey, UK. ?@merlyn.demon. co.uk Turnpike v4.00 IE 4 ©
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