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RE: Explicit Link Between Radio Buttons and "Question" Label?

for

From: Lori K. Brown
Date: Feb 12, 2003 12:54PM

Paul-

I know that you are trying to be helpful, but I find your answer to
be a classic example of 'standards speak', where my requirements are
wrong and the spec is right, and if what I need isn't supplied by
the spec, then the answer is that I am coding wrong. The possibility
that the spec is incomplete is never even on the table in this
world.

I don't use 'complex' tables to lay out forms -- in our product,
layouts that used to be accomplished with tables nested 3 or 4 deep
are now accomplished with one table and when possible, with only
divs. But I have too many legacy NN4.7x users to be a coding purist,
and there are times when a table is the only practical way to give
these users a layout that is to some degree consistent across
browsers. This is the real world, and if customers use idiotic
ancient browsers, I have to support them as long as their checks
keep clearing the bank.

Since I can't nest fieldsets one inside another, they do not answer
my needs in this regard (nor David's, it sounds like). I told you I
already know how to adjust the look of fieldsets with CSS, but that
if the border of fieldsets is suppressed altogether, it doesn't do
for visual users that which we quite reasonably insist that they do
for those who use screen readers -- group form elements logically.

I still maintain that until / unless the spec is enhanced to allow
me to nest fieldsets (the outermost fieldset groups form elements
topically, the inside ones group questions & answers, for example),
there is not currently a good answer to this problem.

Lori Kay Brown
User Interface Engineer
SiteScape, Inc.
E-mail: <EMAIL REMOVED>


-------- Original Message --------

==> From: "Paul Bohman" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
==> Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 12:27:43 -0700

If you know how to work with CSS, then you can make your fieldsets
and legends do anything that you want them to, visually, without
losing the structural markup.

You can supress the visual box around fieldsets for example with
this CSS coding:

<fieldset style="border:none">

You can also change the color, thickness, and look of the border
(e.g. solid, dotted, or dashed):

<fieldset style="border:#000000 2px solid">

If your problems arise because of complex table layouts that don't
allow you to wrap the input elements in a fieldset, I would suggest
that the table layout is the problem rather than the fieldset.
Simplify the table layout and mark it up with the fieldset.

This really is the best way to group form controls of this type. In
fact, this convention holds true off of the Web as well (and was
first invented in non-Web formats). In my Internet Explorer 6.0
Internet Options dialogue box on Windows XP, for example, I can see
that there is a fieldset around the "Home Page" options, around
the "Temporary Internet files" options, and around the "History"
options.

For an even more obvious use of the fieldset convention, look at the
preferences dialogue box in the Opera browser (File > Preferences)
You'll see that all the radio buttons and checkboxes in all of the
categories are grouped in fieldsets (especially look at file >
preferences > accessibility).

The Fieldset convention has been around for a long time in
programming, and, as of HTML 4.0, you can do the same thing on the
Web. So the answer to your question is that the method (fieldset)
already exists and it really is the correct and official standard.

Paul Bohman Technology Coordinator WebAIM (Web Accessibility in
Mind) www.webaim.org Center for Persons with Disabilities
www.cpd.usu.edu Utah State University www.usu.edu



-----Original Message----- From: Hoffman, David
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2003
11:58 AM To: ' <EMAIL REMOVED> ' Subject: RE: Explicit
Link Between Radio Buttons and "Question" Label?

I have previously experimented with using fieldset and legend as
suggested. In addition to the issues listed below by Lori, legend
has some very rigid requirements, which interfered with the desired
HTML coding on complex forms. I am hoping for either an alternative
solution or some kind of effort to ensure that the standards
directly address the issue in the future.

Thanks, David





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