WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Mark-up for multiple choice tests.

for

From: Pratik Patel
Date: Mar 13, 2015 12:08PM

Hello Sarah,

Fieldset and legend is useful if the screen reader user is going to be in
"focus mode." But, screen readers no longer require that mode for radio
buttons or checkboxes. For this example, I would suggest that questions be
marked up in headings so that the user can easily navigate from one to the
other. A question followed by the choices should clearly indicate to the
user the relationship between questions and their corresponding choices.

Even if you markup questions via fieldsets and legends, the user should not
encounter verbose repetitions if he/she uses arrow keys to navigate. Tabbing
through choices will, however, present verbose repetitions.


HTH.

Pratik

Pratik Patel
Founder and CEO, EZFire
E: <EMAIL REMOVED> (or <EMAIL REMOVED> )
Follow me on Twitter: @ppatel
Follow me on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/pratik-patel/9/985/882
Skype: Patel.pratik


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Bourne, Sarah
(ITD)
Sent: Friday, March 13, 2015 1:57 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: [WebAIM] Mark-up for mulitple choice tests.

How would you mark-up a multiple choice test item in HTML so that the
question and choices are both picked up by screen readers?

Here is an example test item:

You are throwing a dinner party. Two guests are vegetarians. One person is
allergic to nuts, and another is lactose intolerant. Which dish can you
serve?
- Eggplant parmesan
- Yankee Pot Roast
- Trout Almandine
- None of the above

The answers (indicated in the example with a leading dash and space) would
be marked up as radio buttons whose labels are the answers. The obvious way
to programmatically connect the question paragraph with them is to make the
paragraph the legend of a fieldset.

But screen readers would then repeat that legend in front of each answer.
Wouldn't the test taker's head explode by the fourth or fifth question? Is
there a more elegant, less verbose, but valid and easy to use way of
handling things like this?

sb
Sarah E. Bourne
Director of IT Accessibility, MassIT
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
1 Ashburton Pl. rm 1601 Boston MA 02108
617-626-4502
<EMAIL REMOVED>
http://www.mass.gov/MassIT