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Re: Forms and accessibility issues

for

From: Chris Heilmann
Date: Jul 19, 2004 1:31PM

earl.machen wrote:

>I've been working for a couple weeks now on a text only version of a
>site. One concern I have is forms, which although have passed bobby
>aaa, I'm wondering how those with dissabilities handle forms.
>
>What about drop down boxes (for instance on of my forms has a place
>for the user to select the country they are from with about 50
>countries listed) does the user have to sit while the browser reads
>every choice?
>
>When using the Lynx viewer it would not read information in drop down
>boxes at all?
>
>
Why don't you download Lynx and try it yourself? This is the easiest way
to find out. A screen reader will read out all the options, that is why
it is advisable to group them via OPTGROUP for easier access. To make
forms accessible, you'll need to add Labels for each element, and, if
the form gets overly complex, chop it into different parts via Fieldset
and Legend. The WAI website has good information about that and the
bobby help, too.

More info on Forms:
http://www.joeclark.org/book/sashay/serialization/Chapter12.html

One word of warning: Bobby only tests the technical validity of the
HTML, it cannot tell if the page really makes sense, and if your
alternative texts for example really help the disabled users.

As to your other question in the other email: You can embed images and
give them a good alternative text in the ALT attribute and some extra
info in the title (if needed) and every text browser and screen reader
will be able to explain to the non-image user what it is about. There is
no need for texts replacing the image, the ALT attribute is there for that.

Info on images:
http://www.joeclark.org/book/sashay/serialization/Chapter06.html
HTH

Chris