Landmark role=form (Comment 399)

Document: WAI-ARIA 1.0 Authoring Practices Working Draft 7 March 2013

With reference to Section 3.2.7:
Also refer:
http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/CR-wai-aria-20110118/roles#form

I understand a form may contain standard HTML form elements and custom / scripted components. But can they not all reside within a standard HTML FORM element?
Why is it necessary to define a landmark for form?
So can a standard HTML FORM element be contained in a div with role=form?
It is also likely that role=application may need to be applied to the whole or part of the form in certain situations. Will this not  increase risk of incorrect / mis-application of these guidelines? 
The other complication is for a search form the role=search should be used and not role=form. Why?
The search form is first and foremost a form. So calling it a form is not wrong.
Be it a simple or an advanced search form, all that is needed is to distinguish this form from other forms on the page. An airline's home page has quite a few forms  for example but the search form might appear on all pages on the site.

So a simple div with role=search and an HTML FORM element within is most sufficient.

Apply the first  rule of ARIA usage enshrined in the ARIA Intro doc and question whyrole=form is needed in addition to the native FORM element. 


Proposal:

I suggest role=form  and role=search should be revisited in the light of the above comments.

Received on Thursday, 7 March 2013 18:52:28 UTC