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Re: ARIA and Label tags both for Error Messages

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From: Hewitt,Susan (DSHS)
Date: Feb 12, 2014 6:33AM

From an earlier message:
>We don't use the title attribute because less users had it set to read out in our survey about 18 months ago. Has this changed?

I used to be pretty strict in discouraging the use of title attributes as earlier versions of JAWS needed a user to change the default settings to read title. But we're on version 15 now (right?) and at some point you have to move on (see IE6.) I believe VO will always read title. Shamefully, I'm not sure about other screen readers.

When it comes to form fields where a visible field doesn't make sense, I now ask developers to use title before ARIA. I say this because ARIA is there to fill in when existing HTML elements aren't enough and I believe using title is acceptable and preferred in that situation. BUT I would not use it for error messages as it wouldn't be available to keyboard-only (not screen reader) users. There's no way for them to access that "tooltip" pop-up a mouse gets with a title attribute. Steve Faulkner has a lot of good information and thoughts on title here: http://blog.paciellogroup.com/2013/01/using-the-html-title-attribute-updated/

As far as " 4) They also want ARIA, though it looks like a consensus that we should push back on having both," at the end of the day too much information is better than none.


Susan Hewitt
EIR Accessibility Coordinator
Texas Department of State Health Services
<EMAIL REMOVED> | 512-776-2913