WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Footnotes

for

From: Isabel Holdsworth
Date: Aug 22, 2018 8:53AM

Hi all,

We're creating an exam test whose answer options have associated
footnotes, sometimes more than one.

We have a multiple choice question that has four possible answers and
three footnotes at the bottom of the page.

Answer 1 is associated with footnote 1.
Answer 2 doesn't have any footnotes.
Answer 3 is associated with footnotes 1 and 2.
Answer 4 is associated with footnote 3.

What would be the most accessible way of associating each option with
its footnote(s)? Using aria-describedby could work, but I don't feel
it's reliable enough. I'm using JAWS in expert mode and can't seem to
get access to descriptions marked up in this way. And it could get
confusing if an option is associated with more than one footnote.

I could ensure that the footnotes are located directly after the
answer options in the DOM. Would this be enough? Screenreaders in
forms mode would skip over the footnotes and straight to the submit
button, and users might never realise they are present. So this
doesn't feel like an acceptable solution.

I'd really appreciate your thoughts on this.

Cheers, Isabel