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FW: Adding a label to search box

for

From: Jim Thatcher
Date: Apr 17, 2006 11:40AM

Hi Larry,



Larry Hull:

>Accessibility checking tools will for the most part fail a page if

>the label element isn't used for a search box.



I am not sure what "for the most part" means. I tested 6 commercial tools
and three passed the page when the form control had a title attribute
instead of the label. Those that passed were InFocus, Ramp, and WebKing.
Those that failed were Bobby, The Lift Machine and WebXM. There will be more
about these tests on my site shortly.



So half the tools I looked at failed the page if the title was used instead
of the label. I hope and believe that will change in the near future.



IBM uses an invisible image with alt="search for:" enclosed in the label
element; it is my understanding they use this technique instead of title for
just the reason you state.





Larry Hull:

> some sophisticated accessibility checking tools still fail the

> page because the label is empty, i.e., doesn't contain explicit

> on-screen text



In my tests all 6 tools passed the page if the label element contained an
image with non-empty alt-text. So which "sophisticated tools" are you
talking about? I would like to include them at some later time.



Jim



Accessibility Consulting: http://jimthatcher.com/

512-306-0931