WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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Re: Alternatives to LEGEND for a radio button?

for

From: D A
Date: Aug 27, 2009 9:00AM


> "screenreaders ignore headings, paragraphs and other non-forms
> elements when in forms mode, so text in headings might not be read out
> once a screenreader user starts to fill out the form." [0]

Now why would a screen reader do that? Ugh!

I'm tempted to consider this an issue and figure out a way to deal
with the inability to style Legend tags properly. However, this seems
to maybe be more of a bug/oversight of the screen readers themselves.
If a screen reader ignores any non-form element, I assume that also
means it's not picking things up like tips (additional text, often a
paragraph) next to form elements to help the user.

Of course, that same thread mentions the following:

"To complicate matters further, there are also bugs with some versions
of Jaws and nested fieldset legends."

Anyone know if these issues (ignoring headers in a form, bug with
nested fieldsets) are primarily limited to JAWS or is it a more
universal issue with screen readers in general?

-Darrel