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Re: Unlabelled form field with adjacent button as label?

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From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Feb 28, 2015 5:34PM

> Does this mean that the field *does* need a label of some description, and that the adjacent button doesn't serve as a label by itself unless it's associated somehow



Lynn, my understanding is that you don't have to associate the visual label and the input's accessible name -- that is, you could use a title attribute on the input. The idea here is that you need a visual and a programmatic label for all input -- but there are many ways that could be solved. Using aria-labelledby is certainly semantically best but I don't think required. If you look at the checks they say:



For a field and a button using this technique:

1.Check that the field and button are adjacent to one another in the programmatically determined reading sequence.

2.Check that the field and button are visually rendered adjacent to one another.



The check doesn't required programmatic association other than reading order. In my opinion there should also be a check there to make sure the field has an accessible name.



Also, for what it's worth sufficient techniques are not required for conformance - conformance can be met using other techniques as long as the success criteria is met.



Jonathan





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Jonathan Avila

Chief Accessibility Officer

SSB BART Group

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-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Lynn Holdsworth
Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2015 6:19 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: [WebAIM] Unlabelled form field with adjacent button as label?



Hi all,



http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/G167.html



Technique G167 (link above) for WCAG2 success criterion 3.3.2 (labels or instructions) describes the use of a button to label an adjacent field.



There's a note that says "The field must also have a programmatically determined name, per Success Criterion 4.1.2".



Does this mean that the field *does* need a label of some description, and that the adjacent button doesn't serve as a label by itself unless it's associated somehow with the field, for example by using the ARIA-LABELLEDBY attribute?



Thanks as always,



Lynn