Re: How did this one slip by

Patrick and Jon’s recollections match mine, it was intentional and there are scenarios that lead to that wording.

If the author is creating something for a user’s information, it is required. If it is not (or might not) be about the user, it is not required.

The only current method (still) is the HTML autocomplete attribute, which generally triggers an autofill.

Coded in a way that aligns with the SC, you could have a form for a family of people booking a flight. Then:

  *   The primary passenger (who is paying) does their info first, and the autocomplete attribute is used for their info.
  *   The subsequent passengers’ information would not use the autocomplete as it is not “about the user”, and you wouldn’t want the incorrect information provided by default.

There are situations where incorrect info might be provided by default (e.g. someone at work booking for a colleague), but overall it was thought to provide the programmatic “purpose”, and usually trigger the correct autofill behaviour.

Kind regards,

-Alastair


From: Jon Avila

  *   the author has no idea if one user or another is filling out the page — there would be no difference in what they did in coding their page
One thing I believe the wording was trying to avoid was something like a human resources system where the user may be entering information about another person. Or for example, someone purchasing an airline ticket for another family member.

Jonathan

From: RTF-Gregg Vanderheiden

I guess since

  1.  the author has no idea if one user or another is filling out the page — there would be no difference in what they did in coding their page
  2.  I  am recommending no action
it is moot for 2.2

For WCAG3 however - we should either rethink —  or we should add a note explaining exactly why this only applies to the user    (or even how you can do it for the user and not have it be available for any other person too?)

best
g

On Jun 11, 2025, at 1:57 PM, Patrick H. Lauke <redux@splintered.co.uk<mailto:redux@splintered.co.uk>> wrote:


No, this was done on purpose. I'll leave it to Alastair and co to dig through the minutes that led to this, but in short it was a way to limit side effects of using autocomplete in HTML (currently the only realistic solution to address this) and having a browser autocomplete things that are not about the user themselves ...

P
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Patrick H. Lauke