BBC removing microformat support
4 July 2008 | Posted by Jeffrey Barke | No comments
It was sad to read on John Resig's blog that the BBC found the microformat convention of using <abbr title="…"></abbr> to denote items like dates negatively impacted usability.
The BBC's concerns were:
- the effect on blind users using screen readers with abbreviation expansion turned on where abbreviations designed for machines would be read out
- the effect on partially sighted users using screen readers where tool tips of abbreviations designed for machines would be read out
- the effect of incomprehensible tooltips on users with cognitive disabilities
- the potential fencing off of abbreviations to domains that need them (travel—airport codes, finance—ticker symbols etc)
This means that the BBC will only be using microformats that avoid the abbreviation design pattern (rel based and hCard), but ditching hCalendar.
As an alternative, the BBC is looking at RDFa, but as John Resig notes, "riddled with advanced, or just plain confusing, terminology … [RDFa] appears to be solidly entrenched in the ways that Microformats were able to shake themselves free of, allowing them to achieve widespread adoption."
Sources: John Resig, BBC
