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Re: how to make use of asterisks accessible

for

From: Paul J. Adam
Date: Nov 9, 2012 2:23PM

I have some feedback on the use of * to indicate required form fields.

I wrote a blog post a while back discussing this. http://www.deque.com/accessible-client-side-form-validation-html5-wai-aria

Here's the excerpt:

By default NVDA will not speak an asterisk * as “star”. VoiceOver & JAWS both say “star”. NVDA users can adjust their Symbol Pronunciation settings to force * to be spoken by setting the Level to “some” but not all users are aware of this feature and will usually be running on default settings. By placing the aria-required=”true” attribute on all required fields NVDA will now announce they are required at the default settings. VoiceOver and JAWS will speak the star and the required attribute.

aria-required=”true”

The easiest enhancement is to add the aria-required=”true” attribute to all required fields in your form.


Paul J. Adam
Accessibility Evangelist
Deque Systems
<EMAIL REMOVED>
www.PaulJAdam.com
@pauljadam on Twitter

On Nov 9, 2012, at 3:09 PM, "Iaffaldano, Michelangelo" < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Is it still OK to mark required form fields with an asterisk at the end of the label string? I have seen various demos that complicate that technique but I am not sure about the benefits to the end users.
>
> Michelangelo
>
>