I am building an app which has to be WCAG compliant. It requires about 12 buttons. Some of the buttons have only tooltips and icons but no labels. I haven't been able to find clear cut language in WCAG about this problem. Are titles necessary for buttons?
Short answer
Yes, your button must have so form of text label associated with it.
But don't be confused with <label>, which is normally unneeded for a button.
Long answer
The answer isn't answered directly in WCAG, but this is a question of perception, which is the first WCAG core principle.
If your button has only an icon but no alternative text or label, it follows that screen reader users won't perceive your button.
So, in the broad sense, yes, your button must have a kind of label.
You have several ways to set an accessible label, technically known as accessible name, to a button having no text itself:
Attribute alt of <input type="image"/> or the <img/> which is inside the button
aria-label or aria-labelledby attributes
Visually hidden text
Don't be confused with <label> element. It's unneeded for a button, since a button usually carry its own accessible name.
An <input type="text"/> need a separate <label> because it has typically no accessible name otherwise.
This may also be a question of understandability, which is the second WCAG principle.
Even for perfectly sighted people, are you sure that the meaning of your button without any text is crystal clear ? Few icons are known to be almost universally understood by everybody without any hint, any help, any tooltip, nothing.
IN that quite small list you can certainly find multimedia buttons (play/pause/stop/record), parameters/settings wheel, power on/off, but probably not many more.
As a consequence, the question isn't only about having an accessible name for screen readers. It goes much beyond that.
To wrap up, yes, your button definitely must have some form of text label associated with it.
Short Answer
You should add aria-label to your buttons.
Longer Answer
Buttons need a name that can be computed for accessibility. First to answer your questions:
Are titles necessary for buttons?
No
Should buttons have labels from WCAG point of view?
No once again, in fact they are probably not valid.
So what should I do?
Buttons don't need titles or <label>s (in fact a <label> on a button would probably not be valid without some WAI-ARIA).
But, they do need to have an accessible name, and I think this is the part that is causing confusion.
Because your buttons only have an icon and a tooltip, they probably / possibly do not have any text that is useful to assistive technology (such as a screen reader).
So when they reach a button with just an icon using a screen reader they will hear "button", with no indication of what the button is for!
The fix
There are several ways to approach this, but the easiest is aria-label.
WAI-ARIA is a set of attributes you can add to HTML elements to add extra meaning / semantics to make a page make more sense to assistive tech users.
The aria-label attribute, when used on an interactive element (such as a button, an anchor / hyperlink etc.), will indicate the the browser "hey, please present this as the accessible name for this element.".
So in your example, something similar to the following would ensure that the purpose of a button is clearly described:
<button aria-label="Add New Document">
<!-- your icon -->
</button>
So instead of just saying "button" when focused it will now say "Add New Document, button".
Related
(This question is similar to Should ARIA labels provide context?, but not identical, as I'm talking about buttons and do not have full control over the markup.)
I have some amount of items and buttons that act on those items. Here's a simplified example:
<ul>
<li><span>Item: foo</span> <button>remove</button></li>
<li><span>Item: bar</span> <button>remove</button></li>
<li><span>Item: baz</span> <button>remove</button></li>
</ul>
As far as I understand, when someone using a screen reader tabs through the page, they will be read the button text but not the item text. This doesn't seem ideal to me, as they don't have context on which item the button will remove.
Assume that I don't have full control of the markup; I can only add attributes.
What is the best practice in this situation?
add an aria-label to the button that gives more context:
<button aria-label="Remove item foo">remove</button>
make the item text itself tabbable and give it an aria-label so it's read aloud:
<span tabindex="0" aria-label="Item foo">Item: foo</span>
leave things as they are, because this is intended behavior and/or I'm misunderstanding something about screen readers
something else entirely?
The answer depends on if you're trying to conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and are only worried about compliance issues (from a legal perspective), or if you want to have a great user experience regardless of whether you conform or not.
The first part, conformance, is a little tricky. Regarding context, 2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context) comes into play but only for links. The guideline says the text for a link is ok if the user can figure out the meaning of the link from the link text and the surrounding context (such as what text is before or after it). And then context is defined as the link being in the same list item (<li>) as the surrounding text.
So that sort of fits your scenario, but you have buttons instead of links, so WCAG 2.4.4 doesn't really apply to you.
There isn't a clear guideline for the context of buttons except WCAG 2.4.6 Headings and Labels. It says that the label [of a button] must describe the purpose of the button. So who decides whether the label is descriptive enough? That's a tough call. Is "remove" descriptive enough? Maybe, maybe not. It kind of depends who you ask.
So if you are focusing on a great user experience rather than conformance to WCAG, adding context to the buttons is a really good thing.
You are correct that if a screen reader user tabs through the interface, they will only hear the button label and not the list context. But screen reader users have many ways to navigate a webpage. One option is to navigate by list elements (<ul> or <ol>) by using the L key (JAWS and NVDA). Another is to navigate by list item (<li>) by using the I key. (That's the letter 'i', not a number 1). So a user can navigate to your list items, hear the text of the list and the text of the button and get some context.
I would not recommend your second idea of adding tabindex to the list. You don't want the user to tab to elements that are not interactive.
Adding more context via a label is the best approach. I would recommend using aria-labelledby before resorting to aria-label. If you have an element in the DOM already that has the text context you need, give that element an ID and then refer to that ID in the aria-labelledby of the button. It's a little more work but then you don't have to worry if you change the text in the list because the button is using an indirect reference and will automatically pick up the new text.
You'll also need an ID on the button and then you have the button point to itself and to the context. That sounds confusing but here's all it is:
<ul>
<li>
<span id='item1'>Item: foo</span>
<button id="button1" aria-labelledby="button1 item1">remove</button>
</li>
<li>
<span id='item2'>Item: bar</span>
<button id="button2" aria-labelledby="button2 item2">remove</button>
</li>
</ul>
A simpler approach is to use aria-label as in your first suggestion but I don't like repeating text in an aria-label that's already in the DOM. If your list text changes at some point, you have to remember to change the aria-label too.
Making the span focusable is a very bad idea unless it produces an action itself when clicked. Only elements that are actually interactive should be focusable.
It's very confusing for the user is something is focusable but don't provide any interaction when focused.
Adding context with aria-label is a good idea, but in fact there is better.
The recommended way is to add off-screen text instead:
<button>Remove <span class="sr_only">Item 123</span></button>
Where .sr_only is a CSS class present in many frameworks with different names (sr_only, visually-hidden, etc.) which send the text off-screen. It is invisible for normal users, but read as normal by screen readers.
My product has an area where we want to display a default value (let's say the name of a document page), but when the user focuses on it and hits the space bar, it becomes an editable field. We are trying to write accessible code, and I was wondering if anyone had guidance about how to indicate to someone using a screen reader that this content is editable?
The way we are currently handling it in the code is to have a div with the name and when the user clicks (or focuses and hits space bar), it turns into an input. (They can hit enter or a button to save.) Are there ARIA values we could leverage for this or some other native solution?
Default:
<div>Page title <button>Click to edit page title</button></div>
When editing:
<input maxlength="500" value="Page title" />
We don't have a button to save right now. You hit enter or remove focus from the input, and it automatically updates.
The ARIA in HTML document defines "Element with contenteditable attribute" as having an implicit aria-readonly="false" attribute. This property is only available for some ARIA roles according to ARIA documentation and the textbox role is the more appropriate in your case. In this case no button is needed.
If your editable section does not contain HTML code (like links), it seems useless to use a contenteditable section and you should use instead standard input or textarea elements with appropriate CSS design, respectful of WCAG standards (i.e. Editable fields have to be distinguishable from text)
If your editable section does contain HTML code, then you would have to use a contenteditable atttribute. You have to identify the section as being a role=textbox element and it must be focusable with tabindex=0 attribute. This can be done on page load (without button), or after clicking a button outside the section (if you need, for instance, to be able to activate the inner links in normal reading context).
I noticed on a few places (mainly Youtube's comments), there are "textbox" instead of the normal "textarea".
<div role="textbox" aria-multiline="true"></div> vs <textarea></textarea>
Also I see <div role="textbox"></div> instead of <input type="text">
Is there any functionality advantages to use role="textbox" instead of textarea or input? Or is this just pure preference? For example, is it easier to modify or edit using Javascript?
As you see above, I am selecting the comment box with Chrome's inspector.
Now I added text to the comment box, and the text appears inside the div element stated above when viewing Chrome's inspector.
I'm not sure where you are seeing that a div should be a textbox, but that's incorrect. The tag is input, not div.
But, to your larger question the role attribute pertains to the WAI-ARIA standard, which relates to user accessibility for those who use assistive technologies, such as screen readers. It allows those users to navigate a page more easily because the screen reader has a better idea of what elements are what on the page.
There are no new functions that the text field takes on because of the use of this attribute. ARIA is about accessibility.
You can read a bit more about this, particularly relating to text fields at: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Accessibility/ARIA/ARIA_Techniques/Using_the_textbox_role
(HTML) I realize that the label tag for an input tag puts the cursor in the field when you click the label, but it doesn't seem to do anything for a select tag. Is it even useful for a select tag or necessary for anything?
Clicking on a label element focuses on the associated control even when the control is a select element. This is a real effect, though it is unclear whether there is much use for it (unlike for radio buttons and checkboxes, which tend to be tiny and pose problems to people with motoric disabilities).
In screen readers and assistive software, the label markup can help in different ways, as described in the WCAG 2.0 document Labels or Instructions: Understanding SC 3.3.2. In particular: “When label elements are associated with input elements the label is spoken by screen readers when the field receives focus and users with impaired motor control are helped by a larger clickable area for the control, since clicking on the label or the control will activate the control.” So for example, if the user moves around using the Tab key (to focus on a control), the browser or assistive software may react to the focusing by speaking the associated label.
It tells people what they are selecting.
Consider the difference between:
<label for="a"> Your allergies </label>
<select multiple id="a">
<option>Cats
<option>Dogs
</select>
<label for="b"> Your favourite animals </label>
<select multiple id="b">
<option>Cats
<option>Dogs
</select>
Now remove the labels and try to fill in the correct answers.
There may not be any additional functionality in tying a label to a select, but it adds semantic meaning to the label by associating them. In addition, it provides context for assistance software like screen readers that may be used by users with visual disabilities.
Is there any alternative to <div>? My website is losing "accessibility" because I cannot set focus on a <div>. What control should I use in order to replicate <div> and still hold focus?
This is what my HTML looks like:
<div style="height:70px; overflow:hidden" id="divMsg">
<div class="DivClass">abcdefg abcdkfjghfjdfkj</div><br>
<div class="DivClass">abcdefg abcdkfjghfjdfkj</div><br>
</div>
You can add tabindex to make it focusable; however, this is usually not enough. If you want the element to be clickable, you will also need to add a keydown or keypress handler so that the user can activate it using ENTER, similar to a A link. Otherwise the user will be able to tab to it, but may not be able to do anything with the link after.
If you are trying to create a clickable element, it is sometimes simpler to start with a A tag, and then style it so that doesn't look like a link. A elements respond to both keyboard and mouse and fire onclick for both, so you don't have to do additional keyboard input handing like you do with a DIV.
Finally, if you are making a DIV or A that visually looks like a button or some other control, add the appropriate ARIA role so that a screenreader will call out the appropriate element type - eg.
Complete Transaction
Just give it a tabindex attribute.
If you are specifically looking for accessibility, try out the new HTML 5 tags like <article>. So for example a textreader knows what to read, and your page is much better structured.
Check out this site.
To answer your exact question, it depends why you are using the div; I'm guessing for layout. The tab ordering is dependent upon more than tabindex, as defaults and overflow affects positioning and focus.
To be more specific, you won't use a div to latch onto for tabindex. Rely upon JavaScript and a unique ID; <div class="content" id="page1">
This will also provide you an anchor so you could use http://index.html#divMsg to link focus to the exact place in your HTML document. Note you have only one div ID and reuse the same div class twice in your example.
If this is all new to you the article on difference between ID and CLASS may be of interest to you
Links (element a) and form elements (input text and alike, file, radio and checkbox, submit, image and type button, select, textarea, button element, etc) are focusable by default.
Thumb rule: if an element does something, it should be a link or a form element part of a form. (OT: I guess I've a problem with conjugation here but can't find exactly what - english isn't my mothertongue)
Think twice (at least :)) before using the tabindex attribute: it'll work for a while in your project and then you make some modification elsewhere and suddenly all is broken. And it'll break again, again and again.
For testing with Safari, you'll need to modify Preferences: this browser (maybe also Chrome?) only cycle by default through form elements and not links. Users of keyboard cycle through every focusable elements I guess, like in IE and Firefox.
To learn further, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0) have Sufficient Techniques (and "Failure(s)" also) about keyboard use.