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Re: Screen reader Forms Mode as Only Interaction Method?

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From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Mar 3, 2017 10:04AM

I hate our current method of creating accessible forms, and I hate the way ATs access the content for their users.

It's a convoluted mess that doesn't meet anyone's needs, neither the form's creator nor the form's user. Someone needs to rethink the process, product, and functionality from the ground up.

RE: your specific question about tooltips, they're required for accessibility but they really fail to fully inform AT users, especially blind and low-vision users, with all the information they need about the form in general and the fields themselves.

So much information is in the live body text that surrounds and precedes the form fields. It's not feasible to duplicate all of that information in the tooltips, so AT users end up getting short changed.

The only solution they have is to flip in and out of "forms" mode in their AT software, hopefully flipping to the body text at the correct time to catch the critical information that's there.

Between labels, tooltips, and the regular body text, they all compete with each other and we end up with a near useless mess of a form that takes an enormous amount of time to create and ends up having such minimal usability for the user.

Such an absurd way to create a product when you want to meet the needs of all users.

RE: your questions, "If you think someone needs to know something, why not just put it in plain text? Why make them do a little dance with an icon to get the information?"

This a basic accessibility concept we teach throughout all of our classes: stop burying information inside tags, attributes, summaries, titles, etc. Instead, KISS -- keep it simple, sweetie!

If the information is so important for someone with a disability to know about, then it's important for every other user to know about, also. Put the information in live body text so that everyone sees/hears it. The task is easy to implement, easy to edit and update, and most successful in presenting it to all AT users.

Karen McCall's book, "Accessible and Usable PDF Documents" has a section on accessible PDF forms that's the best in the industry. Contact me off list if you're interested in purchasing a copy: <EMAIL REMOVED>

Sorry for the Friday rant...but you hit a nerve, Brian! You asked good questions.

--Bevi Chagnon

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Bevi Chagnon | www.PubCom.com
Technologists, Consultants, Trainers, Designers, and Developers
for publishing & communication
| Acrobat PDF | Print | EPUBS | Sec. 508 Accessibility |
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-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Lovely, Brian (CONT)
Sent: Friday, March 3, 2017 9:33 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Screen reader Forms Mode as Only Interaction Method?

I have a related question about forms. What do you think about tooltips in forms? I'm talking specifically about little question mark icons that ask and then answer some anticipated question about the reason for asking a question or about how to go about answering the question. I have a number of problems with them:

1. I didn't even think about this previously, but I can see the value of staying in forms mode throughout the completion of a form, so a tooltip requires switching to browse mode.

2. If you think someone needs to know something, why not just put it in plain text? Why make them do a little dance with an icon to get the information?

3. They are almost never coded accessibly to start with, and they are often coded in such a way that it is harder to make them accessible than if they were designed to be accessible from the beginning.

4. They tend to be enclosed by the label element, which just seems all kind of wrong to me: <label for="ss_number>Social Security Number <a href="tooltip_javascript">Why do we need this?</a></label>

Anyone have any thoughts on tooltips in forms?