WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Must all form fields be active to be perceivable?

for

From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: May 12, 2017 6:25AM

What do you mean by "inactive"? The fields are disabled, hidden from users, hidden only from screen reader users, or something else?
-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Angela French
Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2017 5:14 PM
To: WebAim Forum ( <EMAIL REMOVED> ) < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: [WebAIM] Must all form fields be active to be perceivable?

Hello,
We are planning the upgrade of an application that was built about 8 years ago to bring it up to current security and accessibility standards. There is an item of functionality that bothers me and I would like some opinions - especially the opinion of any screen reader users.

The form is used by high school students to create an account in the system. A business requirement is that each username must be unique. To that end, the first element in the form is to create a username, and all other fields are inactive (not perceivable) until a successful username has been entered and that field loses focus. At that point the rest of the form becomes active. As a sighted person, I would never bother to fill out a form without reviewing what the form would ask me and making an estimate on how long it would take me to complete it.

My question is: Is it necessary, in meeting the requirement of being "perceivable," to make all form elements active when the user first encounters the form?

Thank you



Angela French
Internet/Intranet Specialist
Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
360-704-4316
<EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >
www.sbctc.edu<;http://www.sbctc.edu/>;