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Re: Buttons and label tags

for

From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Feb 10, 2005 4:15AM

On Thu, 10 Feb 2005, kieranmobrien wrote:

> I have a page which is like a search results page. Basically you enter
> your postcode and you are returned a list of stores within that
> postcode.

I'd like to refer to my treatise on the accessibility of search result
pages: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/forms/qdfa.html
It especially emphasizes the need for making the most relevant information
(such as the total number of hits) appear most prominently, and appear
first, in the search results. It is also essential to keep the results
page simple and to make navigation to the next page (in case the
results are divided into several pages), as well as from one hit to the
next one on a page, easy and simple.

> We use a third party provider to do most of the work so are
> limited as to what we can mess with.

That can be a serious limitation. It's hard to say anything more specific
without more specific information about the situation.

> At the moment it presents the address and has a 'Map' button which
> then shows the location on a map.

Why button? A link would be a more natural approach. Is there any reason
not to make the address itself a link? Links are generally more flexible
and more accessible than buttons. Buttons should normally be used for
actions that submit some data to some processing or involve an action
like ordering something.

> My problem is that I want to
> associate the map button with an address.

If they are on the same line, on which there is nothing else, the
association is rather evident.

> Can I use a label to do this?

In principle you could, if the button is an element.
But it seems that the button itself is an unnecessary complication.

> What happens in jaws for example if you bring up a list of
> links? Will it just say map 10 times?

A sample URL would help here. But surely if you have list where each item
consists of some text and some element for example,
then any normal linear presentation has to repeat the latter after each
text of an item.

> I unfortunately cannot change
> the alt text as it is a generic button.

What alt text? If it is an image submit button, then it needs an alt
attribute, along with some other attributes. But the practical impact is
relatively small, since if you cannot see the button image, the odds are
that you can't see the map either.

--
Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/