Expand each abbreviation at its first use
Write the full form the first time, put the short form beside it, then use the short form freely from there. G97 is that technique, and W3C files it as sufficient for its abbreviations rule at Level AAA, and only alongside the technique that supplies the expansion itself. Scope is the detail worth catching. This works per page rather than per site, so an abbreviation expanded on your about page is still unexpanded on the article somebody actually landed on. And it does not cover every abbreviation. Some need an explanation rather than an expansion, where knowing what the letters stand for leaves a reader no wiser, and those want a definition instead.
How we find it in an audit
A reviewer reads each page on its own, the way somebody arriving from a search result would, and lists the abbreviations appearing with no expansion anywhere on that page. Then they check the first occurrence specifically, since an expansion in the third paragraph does nothing for a reader who met the term in the first. Industry-standard abbreviations get judged rather than waved through, because standard usually turns out to mean standard to the people who wrote the page.
How affected users experience it
A screen reader may read an abbreviation as a word, as separate letters, or as something that sounds like neither, and which one you get depends on the software and the string. So a reader can hear an abbreviation without ever learning it was one. Readers with cognitive disabilities, and anyone reading in a second language, hit the plainer version of the same wall, where the letters mean nothing and the sentence assumes they do. An expansion at first use closes both, and it costs a pair of parentheses.
Passes vs. fails
Passes
Your return merchandise authorization (RMA) must be approved, so the rest of the page can say RMA freely from there on.
Fails
Your RMA must be approved before return shipping opens the returns page, and the term is never expanded anywhere on it.
Other ways to satisfy this rule
7 guides on this site are filed under 3.1.4 Abbreviations. W3C lists this one as sufficient for that rule only alongside G102, so the pair is what passes and neither half does on its own.
- G55sufficientLink unusual words to their definitions
- G62sufficientProvide a glossary for specialized terms
- G70sufficientOffer a dictionary search for specialized content
- G102sufficientExplain every abbreviation where it first appears
- PDF8sufficientProvide expansions for abbreviations in PDFs
- H28advisoryExplain abbreviations with the abbr element
This guide is our interpretation of W3C technique G97: Providing the first use of an abbreviation immediately before or after the expanded form. W3C publishes its techniques as guidance rather than as the standard, and says so on every one of them. The success criterion is what conformance is measured against, and a technique is one documented way to meet it.