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ARIA tag: when a dropdown exposes a new form elements

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From: Henry, Michael (IntelliDyne)
Date: Jan 5, 2018 11:03AM


OK, I've been reading articles all morning and am more confused than when I began.

Situation:

I'm building a form where the user's choice in a <select> element will cause a new <label>/<input> pair to appear on the page. Specifically, the last <option> is "Other". This will cause a new text input field to appear, asking the user to specify "other".


Option 1: (just backing up a step), do I even *need* to announce the new input, since this new element follows the <select> element in the DOM, and would be read as the user tabs to the next field?


Option 2: If required, what ARIA tag/attribute should I use to announce this new form element?

From what I've read, aria-live is not to be used for interactive elements (buttons, inputs, etc) because the user can't/won't be directed to the new live region and would have to search for it in the DOM.

Is role="alert" the answer? This seems too intrusive to me.


thanks for any, um, input.


Mike




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Mike S. Henry
Creative Services Lead
IntelliDyne Contract Employee
Supporting Enterprise Infrastructure (formerly Military Health System Cyberinfrastructure Services - MCiS)
Desk: (703) 882-3962