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Re: using title attribute as form field label

for

From: Nancy Johnson
Date: Nov 8, 2011 2:39PM

I did have a situation before WAI-ARIA where I was doing a 508 check
on an older site. There was an instance where there was a form that
the user selected one component from a select box, if they wanted to
use multiple components, the user clicked on an "Add Component"
button, the selectbox and all the html, label etc were dynamically
copied.

I could not put a unique label in the form, and there was no budget
money to update the javascript... I did find that I could use the
title attribute. http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/H65 If there was
no other way, and this was the closest I could come..

Nancy

On Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 4:15 PM, James Nurthen < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 07:56, Jared Smith < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> - There's nothing in HTML or accessibility specifications that tell AT
>> to use the title attribute as a label replacement. They just happen to
>> do this on their own. This behavior is really no different than IE
>> showing alt text in tooltips which everyone railed against as being a
>> violation of the spec. It makes me uncomfortable relying on the
>> non-standard quirks of screen readers for accessibility. As has been
>> noted, different screen readers treat the presentation of title
>> differently - and understandably so because a standard behavior is not
>> documented anywhere because the attribute is not even intended to work
>> this way.
>>
>>
>> Jared,
> This used to be the case, but the ARIA accessible name calculation does now
> define title as being a valid fallback mechanism if nothing else has been
> provided (see 2D of the Text Alternative
> Calculation<http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/roles#namecalculation>;).
>
> Regards,
> James
>