WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Forms as lists

for

From: Jared Smith
Date: Sep 2, 2010 1:26PM

On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 12:57 PM, adam solomon wrote:
> 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.

This is precisely what the <form> element already does.

I think you're very much misunderstanding the function of fieldset.
Where does WCAG require or even suggest that all form elements must be
within fieldsets?

In just a few minutes of perusal I found many WCAG documentation code
examples that include form elements that are not within fieldsets. The
only references I found that suggest the use of fieldsets are
http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/NOTE-WCAG20-TECHS-20081211/H71 and
http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-WCAG20-TECHS-20080430/H82.html, both of
which only recommend it when a logical grouping occurs *WITHIN* the
form (e.g., checkboxes, radio buttons, and a few other cases).

> 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.

No, I'm simply saying (as does WCAG) that you should use the fieldset
markup where it is appropriate. Nowhere does WCAG suggest you must
always have <form><fieldset> ... </fieldset></form>.

Jared