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Re: Difficulty with the WebAIM site

for

From: Paul Bohman
Date: Feb 9, 2000 9:38AM

The reason that Norm's screen reader was unable to figure out what the edit
field was for is because we had not put any text next to it. There is only
an edit field followed by a button. In our case, the text was in the button
itself ("search"), but, as we discovered, this is insufficient. We had
overlooked an important part of making forms accessible.
In order for screen readers to "know" what the edit field is for, there has
to be some sort of label for the field. In fact, this is part of the WebAIM
guidelines for higher education institutions, and we simply overlooked it.
This particular guideline can be found at:
http://www.webaim.org/guidelines/#_FORMS. You can also find a piece of
example code on this page which shows how to make edit fields accessible.
We overlooked this aspect of accessibility on another site as well: The
Center for Persons with Disabilities (www.cpd.usu.edu). I have made the
correction on this site, according to the guidelines. I now realize that we
will have to through the entire C.P.D. site and look for similar oversights
on other forms.
The webmaster for WebAIM will be making the changes to the WebAIM site soon
as well.
I'm glad that Norm was able to bring this issue to our attention. Thanks,
Norm! By the way, Norm, you did guess right about the purpose for the edit
field. I'm just sorry that you had to guess.
Sincerely,
Paul Bohman
Web Accessibility in Mind (WebAIM)
Utah State University
----- Original Message -----
From: Daren < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
To: WebAIM accessibility forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2000 8:33 AM
Subject: Re: Difficulty with the WebAIM site

> What kind of screen reader is being used in this situation? Lynx or
> something else? I would like to try it out myself and see what is going
> on.
>
> Daren
>
>