RE: F68 forbids WAI ARIA to replace label element

Please take a look at this form with 3 labels associated with a single SELECT control.
NVDA and JAWS read all three logically and correctly as expected (as per pre-2000 HTML specs using Firefox. But this fails in IE8 even today.
<form>
<table border="0">
<tr>
                     <tr><td colspan="2"><label for="lbl01">Select distance</label></td></tr> 
                                                            <td colSpan="2"><label for="lbl01">Within </label>&nbsp;
                                                                <select name="lbl01" id="lbl01" >
	<option value="5">5</option>
	<option value="10">10</option>
	<option selected="selected" value="15">15</option>
	<option value="20">20</option>
	<option value="25">25</option>
	<option value="30">30</option>
	<option value="40">40</option>
	<option value="50">50</option>
</select>&nbsp;
                                                                <label for="lbl01">miles</span></td>
                                                        </tr>
</table>

<input type="submit" value="Go" />
</form>
Some might want to use aria-labelledby / describedby  to associate multiple labels with a form control but again it is supported only by some browsers / AT.
The fix for such a multi-label situation is to make user agent makers implement  the specs that have already been written . Using ARIA is a workaround in this situation and not the correct fix.
Again use ARIA only as a bridging technology  in circumstances where standard HTML has limitations or was not imagined to be used.
So what is the guarantee for users that all user agents will implement ARIA and implement it uniformly?
Sailesh Panchang

Received on Friday, 1 July 2011 14:47:18 UTC