Are there any differences between these two screen reader techniques on forms, and is one more encouraged than the other:
<label for="titleInput">Title</label>
<input type="text" id="titleInput" name="title" value="">
<div>Title</div>
<input type="text" aria-label="Title" name="title" value="">
The first way has always been the way to set this up, but since WAI-ARIA was introduced, it's got me thinking if using aria-label with forms is the better than using <label for="x">.
As a rule of thumb: If a real element can do the job, then use a real element. ARIA is what you fallback to when there is no real element that expresses the semantics or when you are doing something really weird which prevents you using the normal element.
(Most of the time, when you are doing something really weird, you should stop doing the weird thing instead).
In this particular case, there are a couple of major differences between the two.
Browsers won't extend the click target to the div element as they would with a label element. Clicking the label will focus the input, clicking the div will not.
You now have two labels. The div and the attribute provide the same information in two different places. The attribute doesn't replace the div, so a screen reader will read out the div text and the label associated with the input.
Use a <label>. It is specifically for associating text with a form control.
aria-label is designed for providing a text description of some content which a screen reader can't read out. e.g. when you are using a background image to convey information instead of using an <img> with an alt attribute (See my previous note about weirdness).
Aria-label is for accessibility. If Aria-label is added, on voice-over i.e (cmd +F5 on MAC or JAWS on windows machine will read whatever is typed inside the aria-label attribute of the HTML tag. This functionality is highly helpful for visually disabled users. Read here https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Accessibility/ARIA/ARIA_Techniques/Using_the_aria-label_attribute
Label is HTML tag , just like <form> or <h1>..<h6> , etc tags, when tag is used it renders Label on the UI. E.g: <Label>ENTER NAME</Label>
Related
Hello any accessibility gurus,
I want to have this button element, when tabbed on, would trigger the screen read of an input element instead.
I tried pointing the aria-labelledby from the button to the input, to have the input's aria-label being read out. But the button still reads out its own description, when tabbed on.
<fieldset>
<input type="radio" id="inputid" aria-label="read me">
<button aria-labelledby="inputid">don't read me</button>
</fieldset>
Is there a way to read another element's content?
Thank you,
2022-12-06 Edit:
Following Andy's comment, the input element is only visually hidden, so it was moved offscreen with css left: -10000px.
I believe aria-labelledby is not used according to the standards, which might explain undefined behaviour.
The Accessible Name and Description, step C mentions the following:
If the embedded control has role textbox, return its value.
That means that if an <input>, which has implicit role textbox, is used as part of an accessible name, not its label, but its value is used as the name.
Further, the ARIA standard on aria-labelledby reads:
If the interface is such that it is not possible to have a visible label on the screen, authors SHOULD use aria-label […]
The main purpose of aria-labelleby is to refer to part of the visible contents of an element like a <form> to label it. Most commonly, this would be a heading like <h2>.
The use case of this question is currently unclear to me. The example provided does not make sense with a single radio input.
If the <input> is completely hidden, visually and from assistive technology, why is it there in the first place? <input type="hidden"> would be the more correct input to use if the form data is needed
If it’s only hidden visually, both the button and the input can be focussed, which is terribly confusing. Does the input appear on screen once it receives focus?
please , I need to know difference between area-placeholder and placeholder ? when area-placeholder will appear in input field
<input type="search" placeholder="Search" aria-placeholder="Search2" />
edit (added a deeper explanation)
ARIA labels are used to express semantics that HTML can't express on its own, i.e bridging areas with accessibility issues that can't be managed with native HTML. It works by allowing you to specify attributes that modify the way an element is translated into the accessibility tree.
for example, let's use a list item as a custom checkbox (the CSS class 'checkbox' gives the element the required visual characteristics.
<li tabindex="0" class="checkbox" checked>
Receive promotional offers
</li>
for sighted users, this will work fine, but a screen reader won't give an indication that this element is a checkbox, so users with low vision might miss this element.
using ARIA will give the element the missing information for the screen reader to properly interpret it.
there are many ARIA attributes, and if you plan on using them (you should!) i recommended reading more here
Aria-label allows us to specify a string to be used as the accessible label. This overrides any other native labeling mechanism, such as a label element — for example, if a button has both text content and an aria-label, only the aria-label value will be used.
A placeholder is a text that appears in the form control when it has no value set. The HTML placeholder attribute enables providing a sample value or a brief description of the expected format for several HTML types and .
If you are creating a textbox using any other element, the placeholder is not supported. That is where aria-placeholder comes into play. The aria-placeholder attribute can be used to define a short hint to help the user understand what type of data is expected when a non-semantic form control has no value.
<p id="date-of-birth">Birthday</span>
<div contenteditable role="textbox" aria-labelledby="date-of-birth"
aria-placeholder="MM-DD-YYYY">MM-DD-YYYY</div>
The placeholder hint should be shown to the user whenever the control's value is empty, including when a value is deleted.
The aria-placeholder is used , in addition, to, not instead of, a label. They have different purposes and different functionality. A label explains what kind of information is expected. Placeholder text provides a hint about the expected value.
ARIA is only modifying the accessibility tree for an element and therefore how assistive technology presents the content to your users. ARIA doesn't change anything about the function or behavior of an element. When not using semantic HTML elements for their intended purpose and default functionality, you must use JavaScript to manage behavior.
for a more detailed explanation, you can visit the aria-label page on Mozilla
Hey a bit of an odd question..
I am building a web app and I want to make use of form inputs but in some cases I feel the form tag bloats the html. I know that a form tag is not required for validation or for the website to work. But in regards to accessibility does the form tag offer any semantic support for those users?
I have a button which will use the data in the input field so there is no use for submitting a form.
Also the tab index won't matter if there is only one input followed by a button..
<label>
Some Label: <input type="text" id="input">
</label>
VS
<form>
<label>
Some Label: <input type="text" id="input">
</label>
</form>
Elaborating a bit on my comment, it's probably fine to omit the <form> tag. Since you mention that there is both an <input> element and a <button> on the page, though, I can think of one possible scenario where the <form> tag could help. Presumably, sighted users won't have a problem making the connection between the <input> and the <button>, probably because of the visual layout of the page. If the connection between them is not clear except from the visual layout, however, then users with assistive technology might find the page confusing. In that case, you could make the connection between the elements explicit by wrapping both the <input> and the <button> in a single <form> and giving that form a <legend>. The text of the legend could elaborate on or otherwise clarify the connection. Since sighted users wouldn't need the legend, you could hide the legend from them (by positioning it offscreen, e.g. position: absolute; left: -999999px;) This seems like a pretty rare edge case, but perhaps it applies in your situation. Otherwise, I can't think of any good reason to include the <form>.
But in regards to accessibility does the form tag offer any semantic support for those users?
It could.
If you read one of the techniques for forms in the WCAG
(http://www.w3.org/TR/2014/NOTE-WCAG20-TECHS-20140916/G184), you will see that assistive technologies might enable the user to loop back to the very first text in the form to seek instructions when needed.
So if the user had this possibility (although i don't think it has been implemented), it won't find anything if there is no form tag.
This is not required. You might want to outline your form so it could be easily navigated to, i.e.:
<form id="myform" role="form" aria-label="My greatest form">
If you do this, then a screen reader user could easily navigate to the form with his/her region navigation keys. And he/she would easily know where the form starts and ends.
I reiterate, this is not required, it's just more comfortable for screen reader users. If, however, you don't want to attract their attention to the form as a whole, let this alone and do not follow this suggestion.
I read from this site [Site]: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh968006.aspx
that aria-multiline is to provide the multi line attribute.
But when i applied to textbox, it doesn't seem to work. Can anyone please tell why. I have one more question, can anyone please tell me the difference between these two elements
<textarea rows="4" cols="50" id="text"></textarea>
<textarea rows="4" cols="50" aria-labelledby="aria-text-label" id="aria-text" role="textbox" aria-multiline="true"></textarea>
Thanks
ARIA attributes are declarative (informative). They inform browsers and especially assistive software what functional properties elements have, mainly due to JavaScript code that processes them, instead of making elements have functional properties. For example, if you used JavaScript to make a div element a multi-line input area, it would be appropriate to set aria-multiline="true" on that element. See the W3C WAI Primer.
Thus, the attribute is redundant for textarea (browsers can be expected to know what that element is). For input type="text" it could be used, but only if you have somehow managed to turn it to a multiline control.
The differences between the two elements presented in the question are:
They assign different id attribute values.
The latter declares a role attribute, which matches the default semantics and is not recommended in Using WAI-ARIA in HTML. (It is allowed, but it may confuse people who read the HTML source and mislead them into thinking that it has some effect.)
It also redundantly declares the element as multiline.
It additionally specifies that the element has a label, which is an element with id="aria-text-label". This is not redundant, but it is normally better, more accessible, to have the label declared in normal HTML markup, using the label element.
Have you read Remarks part of your link? Since textarea is multiline by default, so setting aria-multiline="true" will have no efect. This attribute sets what ENTER key do. In textarea and when aria-multiline="true" it will continue input to second row. But if you set aria-multiline="false" for textarea, it will act as <input type="text"/> - it will submit form on Enter key press and will not jump to second row.
I'm currently wondering when to use clean text (not wrapped inside eg. <p> tags) in html documents.
i have a input fiels which i want some text before like:
<p>Age:</p> <input type="text" name="age">
But using the p tags as above will result in a linebreak between the two. However if I leave out the p tags this problem is no more.
My question is then wether it is OK to leave out the tags, and what in is interpreted as,
Thanks
You are looking for the <label> tag
Though there are many solutions as Webarto said you can style the p tag, or you can use span or label...People usually use label..I'll tell you why..
In good web designing principles one thing comes very important..
If you have some checkbox, or radiobutton, or textfield anything in your form then it should be selected just by clicking on the label assosiated with it..User should not search for the
radiobutton and then click, as it is very small, it should be triggered just by clicking the label, user should not search for the textfield and then click inside it and then type..
<label for="id of input element"> attribute provides that function
Hence people prefer
<label>
The p element means in principle a paragraph, though HTML5 (and common practice) takes a liberal position on this: a “paragraph” is any block of text. But even under that interpretation, there is no reason to use p markup for a field label, as you do not want the label to appear in a block of its own. You might use p markup around the label and the corresponding input field, as in
<p><label for=age>Age:</label> <input type=text name=age id=age></p>
The reason is that you probably want to present such constructs as blocks, not consecutively all on one line. But then you need to remember that p markup implies default margins, corresponding to an empty line above and below. You can remove then using CSS, but a simpler and somewhat more logical approach is perhaps to use div, which indicates a block but with no default margins;
<div><label for=age>Age:</label> <input type=text name=age id=age></div>