WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Forms as lists

for

From: adam solomon
Date: Sep 2, 2010 9:57PM

To Jared:
The spirit of WCAG is to use markup to convey the relevance and
relationships in web content. Form elements need to be in a fieldset in
order to convey to the user that he is in an area of the page which requires
user input and has multiple related input fields. I strongly disagree with
you on two points: The first is our considering the behavior of the screen
reader where it conflicts with wcag. If wcag suggests markup of a particular
nature in order to convey meaning, and the screen reader manifests this
markup in a bothersome fashion, the developer should absolutely not have to
consider screen reader quirks in development. Otherwise, there is
effectively no standard. Where wcag is ambiguous, there may be room to be
practical and realistic and limit ourselves as is relevant to screen reader
behavior.
The second point, related to the first, is that you suggest we don't always
have to follow wcag markup suggestions, though not in those words. If wcag
tells us that fieldset conveys a certain meaning, then I think it should
always be used, except in very extreme and rare cases. In a situation where
you really think the legend would bother the user, maybe we should use a
fieldset without a legend. That would be less of a non-conformance than not
using a fieldset at all. Html 4 does not require a legend for each fieldset.

As regards multiple choice questions and defintion list, it may be overkill.
But I can't for the life of me get it out of my head that I once saw that as
an example of dl implementation in a w3c document. I haven't been able to
find it since. Maybe I was dreaming. But really guys, isn't better to marup
to much than too little as long as there is conformance and relevance?




On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 8:59 PM, Steve Green < <EMAIL REMOVED> >wrote:

> I would react badly to placing multiple choice questions in a definition
> list - I don't see that is appropriate in any way. A group of radio buttons
> or checkboxes is all that is needed, possibly in a fieldset.
>
> There are countless types of content for which there is not an appropriate
> or obvious HTML construction. In these cases it is often best to omit any
> structural markup rather than abuse the few HTML elements that we have.
>
> If you are constructing something for which there is not an obviously
> correct semantic construction, you should consider what sematic markup will
> be useful to people. As a rule, definition lists are useless because they
> have such poor support by user agents. By all means use them for their
> intended purpose, but there is no value in using them in other ways (e.g.
> breadcrumbs, navigation or forms) because no one at all will benefit.
>
> At risk of being inflammatory, I believe a lot of designers are
> narcissistic
> - they they mark up code to please themselves. I think they should be far
> more focused on writing code that is useful to people who consume the
> content. Of course that's much more difficult and it means understanding
> and
> balancing the needs of groups with varying and maybe conflicting needs. But
> that's the job they have chosen.
>
> Steve Green
> Director
> Test Partners Ltd
>
>
>
>