Re: Issues with HTML5 placeholder and related Accessibility API mappings

On 19 March 2015 at 19:16, Bryan Garaventa <bryan.garaventa@ssbbartgroup.com
> wrote:

> The issue being that many see placeholder as a label substitute, which is
> an incorrect assumption, even though the spec seems to imply that this is
> true.


Unclear what spec you are referring to here, the HTML5 spec
<http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/forms.html#the-placeholder-attribute> is quite
clear:

The placeholder attribute should not be used as a replacement for a label.
> For a longer hint or other advisory text, place the text next to the
> control.


>  Use of the placeholder attribute as a replacement for a label can reduce
> the accessibility and usability of the control for a range of users
> including older users and users with cognitive, mobility, fine motor skill
> or vision impairments. While the hint given by the control's label is shown
> at all times, the short hint given in the placeholderattribute is only
> shown before the user enters a value. Furthermore, placeholder text may be
> mistaken for a pre-filled value, and as commonly implemented the default
> color of the placeholder text provides insufficient contrast and the lack
> of a separate visible label reduces the size of the hit region available
> for setting focus on the control.


As far as how placeholder attribute content is used in accessible
name/description calculation I conducted some testing a while back:
http://www.html5accessibility.com/tests/placeholder-labelling.html which
formed the basis for the use of the placeholder in the accessible name and
description section of the HTML Accessibility API Mappings 1.0 draft
http://rawgit.com/w3c/aria/master/html-aam/html-aam.html#accessible-name-and-description-calculation

feedback on list and via bug reports is welcome
--

Regards

SteveF
HTML 5.1 <http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/>