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Re: Are fieldset and legend still relevant?

for

From: Lynn Holdsworth
Date: Dec 30, 2014 8:34AM

Hi Thomas,

I guess I've been conflating testing with development. I'm both a
tester and dev, and I tend to do that. Apologies for any confusion.

If something works with most AT in its out-of-the-box state, but not
with one slightly tweaked popular AT, I don't think it would do any
harm to recommend to developers a few changes that would make it work
for more people.

Kind regards, Lynn

On 30/12/2014, Thomas McKeithan II < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> I concur with Joy. We should determine conformance to the standards basd
> upon how the page is coded and not how a specific AT Tool behavors. For
> years I've advocated fot testing using AT Tools with the "out of the Box"
> settings rather than customizations.
>
> Respectfully,
> Thomas Lee McKeithan II
> QSSI
> http://www.qssinc.com
> 508 SME, SSQA Solutions Center
> 10480 Little Patuxent Pkwy , Suite 350
> Columbia , MD 21044
> (301 )977-7884 x1058 (Work)
> (202) 276-6437 (Cell)
>
>
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Lynn Holdsworth
> Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2014 8:21 AM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Are fieldset and legend still relevant?
>
> Hi Joy,
>
> Thanks for your comments and the good points you make.
>
> I believe the user is King and we should do everything possible to get as
> close to total inclusivity as we can.
>
> I take your point that it's frustrating to have to code for one group of
> users whose AT is set to a particular setting. But I would guess that a
> significant enough number of people are using JAWS with intermediate or
> advanced verbosity settings to make that bit of extra effort worthwhile.
>
> Does the WebAIM survey collect data on verbosity settings? If not it might
> be worth considering this for next year's survey.
>
> Thanks, Lynn
>
> On 30/12/2014, Lynn Holdsworth < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>> Hi Birkir,
>>
>> Sorry, I should have made myself clearer. I'm not advocating using
>> invisible labels, but rather using ARIA-LABELLEDBY to associate a form
>> field with a piece of text that's visible somewhere appropriate on the
>> page.
>>
>> I've knocked up some examples. With JAWS 15 set to advanced verbosity,
>> the second and third examples work beautifully, while in the first the
>> "Gender" label is ignored.
>>
>> http://behindtheyellowline.org.uk/labelledby.htm
>>
>> (Excuse any validation errors - quick turn-around time and all that!)
>>
>> I'll try these with NVDA and VoiceOver when I get a moment, and may
>> create some more complex examples to illustrate what I'm trying to
>> achieve.
>>
>> But for now, would fieldset and legend alone cover WCAG2?
>>
>> Thanks, Lynn
>>
>> On 30/12/2014, Birkir R. Gunnarsson < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>>> Hi Lynn
>>>
>>> It depends how you construct the aria-label I would say.
>>> The relevant pieces of info user needs to ahve access to are the
>>> labels for the individual fields as well as the common label for the
>>> group of fields.
>>> How would you code a gender radiobutton set for instance?
>>> User would want to hear
>>> "gender male"
>>> "gender female"
>>> or at least hear the word "gender" on the first radiobutton, the one
>>> that has focus, right?
>>> Generally I would recommend fieldset with legend "gender" and two
>>> radiobuttons labeled "male" and "female".
>>> If for whatever reason that is not possible I would just construct an
>>> aria group.
>>> <div role="group" aria-labelledby="gender">
>>> <h3 id="gender">Gender</h3>
>>> <label for "gm">Male</label>
>>> <input type="radio" name="rbgender" id="gm"> <label for
>>> "gm=f">Female</label> <input type="radio" name="rbgender" id="gf">
>>> </div>
>>>
>>> You could construct an aria-label and add the legend text to one or
>>> more of the radiobuttons.
>>> It would communicate the same info.
>>> The risk with aria-labels in general is that they are invisible and I
>>> often see developers being sloppy and making typos that do not get
>>> caught by their QA teams.
>>>
>>> I think the Jaws setting is honestly a bit weird.
>>> Users can be extra super power users with Jaws, but they still cannot
>>> guess what a common legend for a fieldset or a tooltip is on a page
>>> (aria-describedby values are not read by Jaws with verbosity set to
>>> "advanced").
>>> The verbosity setting is not even set for the browser specifically,
>>> it is the global setting.
>>> I think FS should fix this.
>>> I digress. ;)
>>> In short, yes, fieldset/legends are still important to me, though
>>> there are ways one could work around it and code the legend into the
>>> labels.
>>> Cheers
>>>
>>> On 12/30/14, Lynn Holdsworth < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> I'm just going through WebAIM's invaluable list of checkpoints, and
>>>> found this one under 1.3.1: Info and relationships:
>>>>
>>>> * Text labels are associated with form input elements. Related form
>>>> elements are grouped with fieldset/legend.
>>>>
>>>> Rather than using fieldset and legend to group form elements, for a
>>>> while now I've been using CSS and ARIA labels.
>>>>
>>>> Fieldsets were always pretty flaky with screenreaders. I have my
>>>> JAWS setting set to advanced, and so legends don't get read out as I
>>>> tab through the elements inside a fieldset. But ARIA labels do. And
>>>> they get read out in the order that the developer deems most sensible.
>>>>
>>>> If I use both legends and ARIA labels, some users must listen to the
>>>> labels twice, sometimes once before and once after the info about
>>>> the element with focus, which could get pretty confusing for beginners.
>>>>
>>>> I'd love to hear your thoughts on this one.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers, Lynn
>>>> >>>> >>>> list messages to <EMAIL REMOVED>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Work hard. Have fun. Make history.
>>> >>> >>> list messages to <EMAIL REMOVED>
>>>
>>
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