RE: Form Labels and Accessibility

Right, right, right. I was mistaken in my original email for the CSS
code for the ".hidden". It is absolutely positioned. Is there any reason
why this technique of "hiding" things would not be accessible? 

It was also called to my attention that while the technique of using an
implicit label is standards compliant it is not WCAG 1.0 compliant and
fails the Priority 2 checkpoint which requires explicit labels.
Unfortunately, I also have to build HTML templates that are to be
integrated with various CMS systems and upon investigation it seems that
implicit and explicit labels are still a mixed bag when it comes to
assistive technologies. To simplify things for use with the CMS systems,
I dropped the use of explicit labels. 

In a minimal sense, the form or technique I have used (below) is
"accessible" but I would love to hear any other techniques or ways to
build friendlier forms.

Thanks,
Wendee

<label><input type="checkbox" name="referral" value="Newspaper" />
Newspaper</label> <label><span class="hidden">Enter newspaper
name</span> <input type="text" size="30" name="newspaper_referral"
/></label>


-----Original Message-----
From: mistermuckle@gmail.com [mailto:mistermuckle@gmail.com] On Behalf
Of Christopher Hoffman
Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2007 8:25 PM
To: Wendee Fiorillo
Cc: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Re: Form Labels and Accessibility

>  -----Original Message-----
>  From: Jon Gunderson [mailto:jongund@uiuc.edu]
>  Sent: Tue 5/29/2007 4:10 PM
>  To: James Golden; Wendee Fiorillo; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
>  Subject: RE: Form Labels and Accessibility
>
>  You may want to use absolute positioning, since that will probably 
> have better cross browser support.

In fact you _need_ to use absolute positioning in this case, since
text-indent does not apply to inline elements.

Chris

Received on Wednesday, 30 May 2007 13:19:48 UTC