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Thread: Must all form fields be active to be perceivable?
Number of posts in this thread: 12 (In chronological order)
From: Angela French
Date: Thu, May 11 2017 4:13PM
Subject: Must all form fields be active to be perceivable?
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Hello,
We are planning the upgrade of an application that was built about 8 years ago to bring it up to current security and accessibility standards. There is an item of functionality that bothers me and I would like some opinions - especially the opinion of any screen reader users.
The form is used by high school students to create an account in the system. A business requirement is that each username must be unique. To that end, the first element in the form is to create a username, and all other fields are inactive (not perceivable) until a successful username has been entered and that field loses focus. At that point the rest of the form becomes active. As a sighted person, I would never bother to fill out a form without reviewing what the form would ask me and making an estimate on how long it would take me to complete it.
My question is: Is it necessary, in meeting the requirement of being "perceivable," to make all form elements active when the user first encounters the form?
Thank you
Angela French
Internet/Intranet Specialist
Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
360-704-4316
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = <mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
www.sbctc.edu<;http://www.sbctc.edu/>;
From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Fri, May 12 2017 6:25AM
Subject: Re: Must all form fields be active to be perceivable?
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What do you mean by "inactive"? The fields are disabled, hidden from users, hidden only from screen reader users, or something else?
From:
Subject: Re: Must all form fields be active to be perceivable?
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On 11/05/2017 23:13, Angela French wrote:
> The form is used by high school students to create an account in the system. A business requirement is that each username must be unique. To that end, the first element in the form is to create a username, and all other fields are inactive (not perceivable) until a successful username has been entered and that field loses focus. At that point the rest of the form becomes active. As a sighted person, I would never bother to fill out a form without reviewing what the form would ask me and making an estimate on how long it would take me to complete it.
>
> My question is: Is it necessary, in meeting the requirement of being "perceivable," to make all form elements active when the user first encounters the form?
No, I don't believe so. If the inactive fields were disabled (using the
HTML disabled atttribute), they would be visible on-screen and available
to screen readers, but would not be interactive or included in the tab
order.
Léonie
--
@LeonieWatson tink.uk Carpe diem
From: Lovely, Brian (CONT)
Date: Fri, May 12 2017 6:45AM
Subject: Re: Must all form fields be active to be perceivable?
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The important thing is that the added/activated form fields be after the triggering field in code order. In other words, if you split a form into A, B, and C sections (with A being first in code order, and C last), and some choice in the B section activates a field in the C section, then that's fine because the screen reader user hasn't navigated to the C section yet, and they will discover the newly activated inputs when they do. However, if some choice in the B section activates a field in the A section, the assumption is that the screen reader user has already been through the A section and has no idea that it has now changed.
From: Meacham, Steve - FSA, Kansas City, MO
Date: Fri, May 12 2017 7:54AM
Subject: Re: Must all form fields be active to be perceivable?
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Not really. Forms are not always filled out one-pass top-to-bottom. Using mouse or keyboard, it's entirely possible to skip around form fields in any order. This can have seldom-considered consequences.
Consider this scenario: Three form fields in visual and code order named A, B, and C. Field A enables and determines what is valid in field B. Field B enables and determines what is valid in field C. The user has filled in all three in order, then goes back to change field A. What happens, and how is a sight-free user made aware?
Now consider a more typical business form with a dozen or more fields with even more complex interdependencies.
From: Lovely, Brian (CONT)
Date: Fri, May 12 2017 8:24AM
Subject: Re: Must all form fields be active to be perceivable?
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Good point, Steve. Although I don't see a way around having at least an empty select "on hold" in situations like a select for state and which then causes a select for county to populate. This seems like a common enough pattern. I suppose there needs to be some text explaining that certain parts of the form are dependent on choices made in other parts.
From: Angela French
Date: Fri, May 12 2017 9:24AM
Subject: Re: Must all form fields be active to be perceivable?
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The form fields are visible, but grayed out and unable to receive focus.
Angela French
From: Meacham, Steve - FSA, Kansas City, MO
Date: Fri, May 12 2017 12:56PM
Subject: Re: Must all form fields be active to be perceivable?
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What happens if the user has entered an acceptable and unique username, then populates additional form fields, then returns to the username field and changes it to something unacceptable or not unique? I hope it doesn't lose the additional information that was entered.
From: Angela French
Date: Fri, May 12 2017 12:58PM
Subject: Re: Must all form fields be active to be perceivable?
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Good question! I'll test it out.
From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Fri, May 12 2017 1:23PM
Subject: Re: Must all form fields be active to be perceivable?
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If fields are present and disabled, I would not consider it a perceivability issue. It is still possible for the someone to perceive the disabled fields with the screen reader.
One of the challenges of making content accessible for a screen reader is that screen reader users often have 2 different ways to perceive, understand, and operate a page. There is the document or virtual cursor or review mode and there is the application or forms mode. I think for screen reader users, the content needs to be perceivable in at least one of those modes. Best practice or improved usability would probably involve finding methods that make the user aware that content may only be available in one mode but not the other or make it available in both modes.
From: Angela French
Date: Fri, May 12 2017 1:53PM
Subject: Re: Must all form fields be active to be perceivable?
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Granted I am a lousy NVDA user but I could not make it read the inactive fields.
Angela French
From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Fri, May 12 2017 2:33PM
Subject: Re: Must all form fields be active to be perceivable?
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Well, that would be a problem. I believe NVDA does have the ability to read disabled fields normally--at least in document mode. Perhaps they are doing something odd that inhibits that?