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Re: Must all form fields be active to be perceivable?

for

From: Angela French
Date: May 12, 2017 9:24AM

The form fields are visible, but grayed out and unable to receive focus.

Angela French

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Tim Harshbarger
Sent: Friday, May 12, 2017 5:25 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Must all form fields be active to be perceivable?

What do you mean by "inactive"? The fields are disabled, hidden from users, hidden only from screen reader users, or something else?
-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Angela French
Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2017 5:14 PM
To: WebAim Forum ( <EMAIL REMOVED> ) < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: [WebAIM] Must all form fields be active to be perceivable?

Hello,
We are planning the upgrade of an application that was built about 8 years ago to bring it up to current security and accessibility standards. There is an item of functionality that bothers me and I would like some opinions - especially the opinion of any screen reader users.

The form is used by high school students to create an account in the system. A business requirement is that each username must be unique. To that end, the first element in the form is to create a username, and all other fields are inactive (not perceivable) until a successful username has been entered and that field loses focus. At that point the rest of the form becomes active. As a sighted person, I would never bother to fill out a form without reviewing what the form would ask me and making an estimate on how long it would take me to complete it.

My question is: Is it necessary, in meeting the requirement of being "perceivable," to make all form elements active when the user first encounters the form?

Thank you



Angela French
Internet/Intranet Specialist
Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
360-704-4316
<EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >
www.sbctc.edu<;http://www.sbctc.edu/>;