Shouldn't we use microformats if we are making accessible site?

Question

Is microformat's classes structure good for Screen reader?

<div class="vcard">
  <span class="fn">Gregory Peck</span>
  <a class="org url" href="http://www.commerce.net/"&gt;CommerceNet&lt;/a&gt;
  <div class="adr">
    <span class="type">Work</span>:
    <div class="street-address">169 University Avenue</div>
    <span class="locality">Palo Alto</span>,  
    <abbr class="region" title="California">CA</abbr>  
    <span class="postal-code">94301</span>
    <div class="country-name">USA</div>
  </div>
  <div class="tel">
   <span class="type">Work</span> +1-650-289-4040
  </div>
  <div class="tel">
    <span class="type">Fax</span> +1-650-289-4041
  </div>
  <div>Email:
   <span class="email">[email protected]</span>
  </div>
</div>

and this (assume both code with same content info)

<p><strong>London</strong>
<br/>
607,5th Floor, Oxford Towers,
<br/>
Airport Road, Kodihalli
<br/>
London 560 008
<br/>
Phone: 91-80- 4115 1705-706
<br/>
Fax: 91-80- 41151707
<br/>
Email:<a href="mailto:[email protected]"></a>
<br/>
Website:<a href="http://abc.com"&gt;abc.com&lt;/a&gt;
</p>

Which method is good for accessibility and text only browser? How screen reader will behave with both method?

Answer 1

Microformats are not about presentational, they are about semantics.

<span>foo</span> renders the same as <span class="bar">foo</span>, and this is all microformats are about : adding standardized class names to HTML elements for a given and identified "thing" (like a person, eg: hcard), nothing more.

Answer 2

I don’t think any screen readers make any use of microformats yet, but microformats don’t hurt screen reader users (except for the datetime design pattern) either.

Please note that microformats generally only specify class names, so you don’t have to just use <div>s and <span>s with microformats — paragraphs and lists and whatnot are just fine, where appropriate.