Re: Technique G167 not well supported by Assistive Technology

On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 12:02 AM, <noreply@w3.org> wrote:

>
> Name: Detlev Fischer
> Email: fischer@dias.de
> Affiliation: DIAS GmbH
> Document: TD
> Item Number: G167
> Part of Item: Applicability
> Comment Type: general comment
> Summary of Issue: Technique G167 not well supported by Assistive Technology
> Comment (Including rationale for any proposed change):
> Our screen reader tests of Technique G167 has shown that it is currently
> not sufficiently supported by Assistive Technology and therefore should not
> appear in the list of WCAG techniques. In our tests (compare
> http://testcases.bitvtest.de/index/html/form/g167.html ), it surfaced that
> currently only NVDA interprets the button as label of the input field before
> it.
>
>
> Proposed Change:
> Remove G167.
>
> ================================
Response from the Working Group
================================
Success criterion 3.3.2 does not require programmatic determination.
Therefore, even though most screen readers may not support G167, using an
adjacent button to label the purpose of a field, the technique may still
satisfy the success criterion, as it does provide instructions which help
sighted users understand the form control, and may also help screen reader
users who may comprehend the relationship between the button and the field
via their reading-order proximity to one another. As stated in the
technique, a programmatically determined name must also be present to
fulfill success criterion 4.1.2, thus providing additional information to
screen reader users about the field.

Loretta Guarino Reid, WCAG WG Co-Chair
Gregg Vanderheiden, WCAG WG Co-Chair
Michael Cooper, WCAG WG Staff Contact


On behalf of the WCAG Working Group