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

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From: Gunderson, Jon R
Date: Mar 30, 2015 8:38AM


Sean,

In terms of the ARIA specification and I believe the HTML5.1 specification, the TITLE attribute will be part of the accessible name calculation, usually as a last resort if no other means is available.

I feel the way you do, that when there are other "better" ways to do something (e.g. LABEL element) they should be used, but alias WCAG 2.0 is not about the "best" way, it is about "some" way to meet the accessibility requirement.

Jon




-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Sean Keegan
Sent: Sunday, March 29, 2015 12:17 PM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: [WebAIM] Name, Role, Value and Labels or Instructions techniques...

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