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Re: is grouping checkboxes using radiogrouppermisible?

for

From: Mark Magennis
Date: Jul 8, 2022 3:07AM

Thanks for your well thought out reply Brooks. However, I don't think I agree with you. As far as I can see, when you embed a checkbox group within a radio button group the radio group will work as normal and you won't even know that there is any embedding. The experience will be identical to that when the checkbox group is added after the radio button group, with one small exception which I'll describe later. I don't see either of these scenarios as a problem.

If you enter the radio button group and don't select one, it works as normal because the checkbox group isn't there. If you select a radio button and arrow through the group it also works as normal. Even when you arrow to the Yes radio button and the checkbox group appears, the radio button group still works as normal. When you tab out of the radio button group you get to the checkbox group, if you had selected Yes and it is there. The checkbox group works as normal. If you tab back to the radio button group, it works as normal.

It's the same as if the question with the checkbox group was placed after the question with the radio button group on the form. The behavior is identical in each case, with one small exception. In JAWS/Chrome and NVDA/Firefox (but not VoiceOver/Safari) when you reverse tab into the checkbox group, if it is embedded within the radio button group, the screen reader reads both group labels, i.e. both questions. But this probably makes sense because one question is the context for the other. Visually, I think it is also probably better that the checkbox group is embedded in the radio button group because, again, this shows that one question is within the context of the other as a dependent question or sub-question.

As far as I can see, the only issue with doing this is whether there is any difficulty arising from dynamically adding conditional supplementary questions to the form at all. That is, questions that you don't know about in advance. I'm not sure that this can be viewed as an accessibility issue though, and I don't see it as a usability issue either. It's pretty normal with forms to have questions that you have to complete or not dependent on your answers to other questions. Consider common paper forms like a national census form. Unlike our web form scenario here, these show all of the possible questions up front and many of them are co-dependent, such as "do you have any dependents?" and if you answer Yes you are directed to answer all the questions about dependents. Even in this case where all of the questions are already on the form you don't know how many you will have to fill in before you start. This seems to be an unavoidable feature of the information space.

My observations for a checkbox group embedded within a radio button group are based on testing with the following code. Note that in this code the checkbox question is permanently embedded because it would take me ages to figure out the javascript to show/hide it. But this is good enough for testing. I may be missing something here, but really I don't see a problem. Please gently correctly me if I'm wrong but I think this meets all of the expectations you gave for a radio group because you don't even know it is embedded.

<h1>Checkboxes within radiogroup</h1>
<fieldset>
<legend>Do you play sports?</legend>
<label><input type="radio" name="theoptions">Yes</input></label>
<fieldset>
<legend>Which sports do you play?</legend>
<label><input type="checkbox">hockey</input></label>
<label><input type="checkbox">handball</input></label>
<label><input type="checkbox">tennis</input></label>
</fieldset>
<label><input type="radio" name="theoptions">No</input></label>
<label><input type="radio" name="theoptions">Prefer not to say</input></label>
</fieldset>


-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Brooks Newton
Sent: 07 July 2022 16:05
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] [EXTERNAL] Re: is grouping checkboxes using radiogroup permisible?

Hi Mark,

What is the expected user experience when an assistive technology user encounters a radio group?

My thought is that the expectation is that, without additional instruction, each radio group will contain mutually exclusive choices which are navigable by pressing the arrow keys. There will be no expectation of embedded content within the radio group itself that is dependent upon which radio button happens to be currently selected. The native semantics of radio groups, and correspondingly, the way that user agents paired with assistive technology announce the radio button groups do not provide programmatically available details associated with the embedded content that is contingent on the current radio button selection.

Now, of course, if you can see the page as you arrow through the radio group choices you'll see that some choices come with extra choices. That's great if you can see the whole page and get the gist of what's happening onscreen when you select various radio buttons . Being aware of these contingencies provides sighted users with the privilege of making an informed choice as to which of the radio button choices is the one they want to make.

If you can't see those contingent, embedded choices pop up onscreen as you navigate through the radio button group, then you miss out on that additional information which could help you make the right radio button choices. That's just my take. I'd love to hear what Birkir and others think.

Sorry if I haven't replied properly to this thread. I'm just using GMail and hitting reply. If there's a better way to respond to the list, please provide those details in the instructions for the Listserv. Or, I guess we can just assume that everyone "gets" the intended interaction without explicit instructions and see how that goes. Isn't it just easier for everyone to have a brief bit of instructive text?

Brooks

On Thu, Jul 7, 2022 at 2:36 AM Mark Magennis < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
wrote:

> I'm still not sure I get it Birkir. The checkboxes are only of
> interest when you select Yes so if you select the No radio button it
> doesn't seem to be important to know that the checkboxes were there
> when Yes was selected but are no longer there. They're simply not
> relevant to you. And I don't see why it would be important, or even
> helpful, to tell the user in advance that if they select Yes some more
> checkboxes will appear. If they do select Yes then they the checkboxes
> will be the next question they come across, in the same way that if
> they had selected No the next question would be a different one. Am I missing something in the experience?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of
> Birkir R. Gunnarsson
> Sent: 06 July 2022 19:28
> To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] [EXTERNAL] Re: is grouping checkboxes using
> radiogroup permisible?
>
> Yes, pressing the arrow keys to navigate between the radiobuttons will
> skip right past the checkboxes (and make them disappear if you switch
> from "yes" to "no").
> At least I would warn the screen reader user that selecting "yes"
> result in additional checkboxes being displayed between the yes and no
> radio buttons.
>
> With a sufficient warning this is ok, but it is a confusing situation
> when the experience is linearized.
>
> On 7/6/22, Mark Magennis < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> > HI Birkir. I imagined that David was probably envisaging placing the
> > checkboxes immediately between the yes and no radio buttons which
> > would be a logical design visually. But what potential confusion do
> > you think this could cause? Is it that it might be difficult to keep
> > track of where you are in the nesting?
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf
> > Of Birkir R. Gunnarsson
> > Sent: 06 July 2022 17:59
> > To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> > Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [WebAIM] is grouping checkboxes using
> > radiogroup permisible?
> >
> > You can have nested fieldset elements, yes.
> > You can even group the checkboxes in a fieldset and add
> > aria-label="something descriptive as a group label" if you don't
> > need a nested <legend> with visible text.
> > Just make sure that group comes after the radio buttons, not between
> > the yes and the no, in content/focus order, it could potentially
> > create a lot of confusion.
> >
> >
> >
> > On 7/6/22, David Farough < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> >> We have the following situation:
> >> In a user profile, we have a group of radiobuttons which asks
> >> whether you are part of an employment equity group.
> >> Options are yes, No and prefer not to say.
> >> If yes is chosen a list of possible options (Checkboxes is displayed.
> >> Would using the radiogroup with the checkboxes be a good option to
> >> handle this in order to minimize the repetition of the group label?
> >> Is there a better solution?
> >> Thanks
> >> > >> > >> archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> >> > >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > Work hard. Have fun. Make history.
> > > > > > archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> > > > > > > > archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> > > >
>
>
> --
> Work hard. Have fun. Make history.
> > > archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> > > > archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> >