WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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Re: Placeholder and Accessible Name Computation

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From: Jonathan Avila
Date: May 8, 2019 1:34PM

I am generally opposed to the placeholder being used as the accessible name because I believe it will lead to the sole use of it as an accepted way of providing a name rather than a fallback. The placeholder should not act as a label and should act as a hint. By including it in the name it encourages it's acceptance as a label rather than a placeholder. It's called placeholder for a reason and not a label.

Would we accept the src of an image as fallback content for the alternative text of an image if no alt text was provided? What about the name attribute of an iFrame if no title or aria-label was provided?

Jonathan