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Re: Legend wrap (or not)

for

From: Stephanie Sullivan
Date: Aug 29, 2007 9:00PM

On Aug 29, 2007, at 9:37 AM, Moore, Michael wrote:

> Try this, I have tested it with IE 6 and FF 2.0 (The only browsers
> available to me at the office).
>
> <legend>
> <span style="display:block; width:34em">
> This is just a string of nonsense text to demonstrate
> that the style markup associated with the span will cause the desired
> wrapping behavior.
> </span>
> </legend>
>
Bingo! I am anti-span (hate adding them in) but sometimes they're
necessary. So far, this works in every browser I can test in (need to
redownload NN to test that one). And to confirm, I've been away from
email today and my friend, Derek Featherstone told me the same thing
on IM tonight. You both win the prize. :)
>
> Screen reader users tend to enter forms mode upon entering a form,
> or at
> least after encountering the first edit field. (input of type text).
> They generally do not exit forms mode until they complete the
> form. The
> exit is handled by the assistive technology.
>
> When in forms mode screen readers will announce the content of the
> legend element unless the user is not using the default verbosity
> settings. Most of the users in our organization (>150) use
> intermediate
> or advanced verbosity settings in JAWS, the advanced mode does not
> announce the legend unless the user turns that announcement back on.

Hrm...
>
> The screen reader will announce the legend before the label for every
> form input contained within the fieldset. This can become a usability
> issue, especially with needing to listen to the same question 5 or 6
> times while trying to review the answer choices. Now imagine listening
> to a survey with 50 questions each containing 5 answer choices.
>
Oh gah. So most of these fieldset/legends contain a couple/few
questions. However, one of them has an ordered list with three items
(each LI in the list has at least one label/input pair, but the third
one contains an unordered list with 7 label/input pairs)... this
sounds like it will read ugly.

And are you saying that BECAUSE I have an ordered list inside my
fieldset, even though this list items don't contain any text outside
the label/input pair, they may not be read? Or am I safe to use lists
WITH labels?

> In the case of nested fieldsets, the screen reader will only announce
> the legend for the immediate fieldset parent of the input.
>
> <fieldset>
> <legend>first level</legend>
> ...
> <fieldset>
> <legend>second level</legend>
> <label>label text</label><input ... /> <!--only second
> level legend announced with label here -->
> ...
> </fieldset>
> </fieldset>
>
>
> The screen reader will only announce form inputs (input, select,
> etc.),
> labels and legends while in forms mode, it will not announce the
> content
> of heading elements or paragraphs.

So I'm guessing the third item in my ordered list should become a
nested fieldset/legend with the list inside that. (well, depending on
your answer to the above question.)
>
> A method that I am currently experimenting with is to place a
> hidden gif
> within the label for the first input in a set of answers for a
> question.
> The question itself can be contained within a paragraph, list item or
> span element. The alt text for the gif also contains the question.
> This
> is working well using JAWS 6.0, 8.0 and Window Eyes 6.0. The form
> looks
> normal for visual users and screen reader users only hear the question
> one time unless they are listening to the form outside of forms mode.
> Their verbosity settings do not matter. If out of forms mode they
> will
> hear the question twice for the first input only.
>
> <label for="test"><img src="tiny_clear.gif" width="1" height="1"
> alt="question text here" />Answer Choice 1</label>
>
Interesting idea. I should shortly have my own set of testers and
will play with this...
Thanks for your input, Michael!
Stef.

---
Stephanie Sullivan
http://www.w3conversions.com
Dreamweaver Task Force for WaSP
http://www.communitymx.com