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Re: Forms as lists

for

From: Steve Green
Date: Sep 2, 2010 1:55PM

Certainly those three items should be grouped in a list if they appear as
text. However, if they are in a form, they are already grouped by the <form>
element and the <fieldset> element if it is present. The questions and
corresponding form controls are related by means of the <label> element. No
further structural elements are needed.

A <fieldset> element is not necessary for the radio buttons because they are
explicitly grouped by their 'name' attributes. There is a case for using a
<fieldset> element to group checkboxes because they are not explicitly
grouped by default.

It seems that designers are falling over each other to see who can add the
most structural markup to their pages, and beyond a certain point this
reduces the accessibility rather than improve it. Semantic structure only
has value to the extent that the author and reader agree on its meaning.
Adding superfluous or inappropriate structural markup adds no value for
anyone.

Steve Green
Director
Test Partners Ltd