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Re: Implicit labeling dropped from WCAG?

for

From: _mallory
Date: May 6, 2016 1:47AM


comment inline:
On Thu, May 05, 2016 at 06:55:44PM -0400, Birkir R. Gunnarsson wrote:
> Me and a few colleagues ran into an issue with Voiceover on iOS 9 and
> implicitly labeled radiobuttons.
> For those who do not know, implicit labeling is when you wrap the form
> field to be labeled along with the label text in a label tag, like so:
> <label><input type="text" size="30">Please enter your name.</label>
>
> This is valid use of the label tag per HTML5 specification.
> But there used to be a WCAG technique that recommended implicit labeling.
> That technique is apparently deprecated.
> Does this mean that WCAG no longer recommends implicit labeling of form fields?
> If so, why?

_m: I always told people to avoid it, and use explicit labeling as much as
possible.
IE6 and 7 had problems with them. http://www.standardista.com/ie6-and-ie7-implicit-label-bug/
Of course for most, these browsers are no longer an issue. IE6 also had
problems with for attribute even when you did explicitly link anyway.

Mike Cherim found an intermittant bug with them with Safari and lists
old problems with screen readers (all of these have, so far as I know,
since been fixed) http://green-beast.com/blog/?p%4

And currently, Dragon still doesn't seem to understand them quite right:
(under "Other Notes" heading) http://www.ssbbartgroup.com/blog/dragon-13-aria-support-is-here/

However, despite implicit labels always seeming to screw up one
technology or another, they've always still been recommended along
with explicit, so it's a surprise to me if it's actually been
removed.

cheers,
Mallory

> If anybody knows the background on this, I'd be curious.
> -B
>
> --
> Work hard. Have fun. Make history.
> > > >