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Re: WCAG SC1.3.5 (Identify Input Purpose) and UK addresses

for

From: Steve Green
Date: Sep 3, 2023 3:18AM

According to the authors of this success criterion, the objective has nothing to do with auto-filling forms. It's to allow user agents to reliably understand the purpose of each field so they can use that to help people with cognitive impairments, such as by displaying icons next to them. I don't believe any user agents do that at the moment, but that's not relevant to WCAG conformance.

Reverse engineering Google and other autofill features isn't going to work because my understanding is that they identify fields by the visible text label and they only recognise "autocomplete" values of "on" and "off". They don't use the values specified in WCAG.

Steve


-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Sent: Saturday, September 2, 2023 9:58 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] WCAG SC1.3.5 (Identify Input Purpose) and UK addresses

The spirit of 1.3.5 is that user software can autofill the address inputs.
If there is no clear and user agent supported HTML autocomplete value/set of values for a UK address, i.e. if the user's software either doesn't understand the value or it's applied inconsistently so software may get half the fields wrong, then there's limited value in trying to implement it at this time.
If the user extension either doesn't do anything or, worse yet, fills in the form wrong, we haven't done the user any favors.

Your best bet would be to test out different values of autocomplete with things like Google or other popular extension to see if you can find a set of values that work consistently across browsers.

I'm guessing the requirement is meant to encourage or drive support for these types of tools. While I like that thought, the biggest drawback is that it doesn't go well with the unforgiving nature of WCAG conformance.

On 9/2/23, Steve Green < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Can anyone help me understand how to apply WCAG SC1.3.5 (Identify
> Input
> Purpose) to UK addresses?
>
> We are possibly unusual insofar as our administrative geography is
> entirely different from that of our postal system.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_geography_of_the_United_K
> ingdom
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_post_towns_in_the_United_Kingdom
>
> In the description of the "autocomplete" values, WCAG says
> address-level1 is the broadest administrative level in the address,
> and that in the UK it is the post town. However, many people never use
> their post town in their address, and may not even know what it is.
> Historically, post towns were where the delivery centres were, and may be many miles from where you live.
>
> If we follow WCAG and use address-level1 for the post town, which
> "autocomplete" value do we use for the county? We can't use
> address-level2 because that's a lower level. And the only higher level
> is country. And what value do we use for the actual town?
>
> Or should we ignore WCAG and use address-level1 for the county,
> address-level2 for the town and address-level3 for the district, which
> is what seems to be the sensible approach?
>
> The whole thing is so ambiguous that different designers will have
> undoubtedly come to different decisions, undermining the usefulness of
> the success criterion. The whole problem stems from WCAG saying that
> address-level1 is the UK post town. If that could be removed or
> changed to say it's the county, everything would be resolved.
>
> Steve Green
> Managing Director
> Test Partners Ltd
> > > archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> >


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