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RE: WCAG and form labels

for

From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Aug 21, 2006 2:00PM

> But does this mean that implicit and explicit labeling are
> mutually exclusive? If they are not, and you use for/id and
> also wrap the label element around the form control, is this
> ALSO implicit. If it is, then according to the documentation,
> it is deprecated and shouldn't be used.
> The WCAG 1.0 documentation uses this approach and clearly
> calls it implicit -
> http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-HTML-TECHS/#forms-labels

My reading is that it is implicit _because_ there is not a for/id.
Adding the for/id makes it explicit. There are multiple ways to make
implicit labeling - positioning, label-wrapping, but only by using
for/id (or you can use a title attribute, in my opinion since the title
attribute is permanently associated) can you get it to be explicit.

It isn't implicit because the label is wrapped, it is implicit because
it is not explicit and because the developer goes and tests to ensure
that it works. They are mutually exclusive.

> Based upon this and upon the WCAG 2.0 examples, I have to
> assume that wrapping the label around the form control is
> deprecated, regardless of whether explicit labeling is used.

I'd disagree. There's no good reason to "deprecate" this technique. It
works, it is explicit - we can argue about the semantic purity of it
until WCAG 3.0 is out but it is an acceptable technique.

AWK