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From: Erick Wilder
Date: Aug 21, 2025 9:21AM
Subject: Radio groups changing other form fields
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Hello everyone.
I have a form with radio groups to select from weight units (stones or
kilograms). Once the user selects “stones” the UI updates itself to display
2 fields where the user is expected to enter: the stones portion of the
weight and the pounds portion of it.
Once the user selects “kilograms” the UI changes itself to display a single
text field to accept the weight value.
Questions: are there any implications to announce these UI changes to
screen readers that I can expect? Should the form be annotated as an ARIA
live region? Would this be more suitable to a tabbed interface instead of
radio buttons (i.e each tab containing an its corresponding fields)?
Regards,
Erick
From: Steve Green
Date: Aug 21, 2025 10:25AM
Subject: Re: Radio groups changing other form fields
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If the changes to the content occur after the radio buttons, there is no need for the changes to be conveyed to assistive technologies unless user testing indicates there's a problem.
I definitely wouldn't use a tabbed interface. Even if it's totally WCAG conformant, the usability is going to be worse.
Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd
From: Sailesh Panchang
Date: Aug 21, 2025 12:31PM
Subject: Re: Radio groups changing other form fields
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Here is a similar use case demo
http://mars.dequecloud.com/demo/Form_RadioChoice.htm
Does this resemble your example?
Thanks
Sailesh Panchang
Email: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Deque Systems Inc | - Accessibility for Good | www.deque.com
On Thu, Aug 21, 2025 at 11:21 AM Erick Wilder via WebAIM-Forum <
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Hello everyone.
>
> I have a form with radio groups to select from weight units (stones or
> kilograms). Once the user selects “stones” the UI updates itself to display
> 2 fields where the user is expected to enter: the stones portion of the
> weight and the pounds portion of it.
> Once the user selects “kilograms” the UI changes itself to display a single
> text field to accept the weight value.
>
> Questions: are there any implications to announce these UI changes to
> screen readers that I can expect? Should the form be annotated as an ARIA
> live region? Would this be more suitable to a tabbed interface instead of
> radio buttons (i.e each tab containing an its corresponding fields)?
>
> Regards,
> Erick
>
>
From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Aug 21, 2025 12:48PM
Subject: Re: Radio groups changing other form fields
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Agreed, just make sure that selecting a radio button does not immediately
send focus to its related content.
Sometimes I recommend putting the content that is displayed in response to
a radio button in a landmark region with the same accessible name.
e.g.
Imagine you have a set of radio button with a group label of "What do you
need help with"
The radio buttons have labels
"orders"
"sales inquiry"
"incident in a store"
"other"
Selecting each of these radio buttons displays a set of questions for the
selected scenario.
You could wrap that content in a <section> element wit the same accessible
name as the radiobutton, e.g.
<section aria-label="incident in a store">
questions related to the incident
</section>
I do this if the questions are very generic or similar, if it's clear from
the context which option you selected it is pretty unnecessary.
On Thu, Aug 21, 2025 at 2:31 PM Sailesh Panchang via WebAIM-Forum <
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Here is a similar use case demo
> http://mars.dequecloud.com/demo/Form_RadioChoice.htm
> Does this resemble your example?
> Thanks
>
> Sailesh Panchang
>
> Email: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> Deque Systems Inc | - Accessibility for Good | www.deque.com
>
>
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> On Thu, Aug 21, 2025 at 11:21 AM Erick Wilder via WebAIM-Forum <
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> > Hello everyone.
> >
> > I have a form with radio groups to select from weight units (stones or
> > kilograms). Once the user selects “stones” the UI updates itself to
> display
> > 2 fields where the user is expected to enter: the stones portion of the
> > weight and the pounds portion of it.
> > Once the user selects “kilograms” the UI changes itself to display a
> single
> > text field to accept the weight value.
> >
> > Questions: are there any implications to announce these UI changes to
> > screen readers that I can expect? Should the form be annotated as an ARIA
> > live region? Would this be more suitable to a tabbed interface instead of
> > radio buttons (i.e each tab containing an its corresponding fields)?
> >
> > Regards,
> > Erick
> >
> >
>
>
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