WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Name, Role, Value and Labels or Instructions techniques...

for

From: Sean Keegan
Date: Mar 29, 2015 11:16AM

Hello all,

I am reviewing a web application that has many form fields that are using
the title attribute. To add to this, there is on-screen text for nearly all
the form fields but the <label> tag is not used consistently. It appears
that the title attribute was used initially to provide supplemental
information and then became more of a support for screen-readers.

I considered this is a fail under 4.1.2 (Name, Role, Value) and 3.3.2
(Labels and Instructions). It was pointed out to me that the technique H65
allows for the title attribute for form fields and this satisfies the
"programmatically determined" requirement as well as provides the relevant
instructions. I say shenanigans as the second part of the H65 technique
uses the phrase "when the label element cannot be used."

Any thoughts/comments from those all-knowing in the ways of WCAG?

(I know there are other limitations to the use of the title attribute for
form controls, but the discussion is centering on the WCAG 2.0 language and
aforementioned technique)

Take care,
Sean