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

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From: Lovely, Brian (CONT)
Date: May 12, 2017 6:45AM

The important thing is that the added/activated form fields be after the triggering field in code order. In other words, if you split a form into A, B, and C sections (with A being first in code order, and C last), and some choice in the B section activates a field in the C section, then that's fine because the screen reader user hasn't navigated to the C section yet, and they will discover the newly activated inputs when they do. However, if some choice in the B section activates a field in the A section, the assumption is that the screen reader user has already been through the A section and has no idea that it has now changed.


-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Léonie Watson
Sent: Friday, May 12, 2017 8:34 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Must all form fields be active to be perceivable?

On 11/05/2017 23:13, Angela French wrote:
> 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?

No, I don't believe so. If the inactive fields were disabled (using the HTML disabled atttribute), they would be visible on-screen and available to screen readers, but would not be interactive or included in the tab order.


Léonie
--
@LeonieWatson tink.uk Carpe diem

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