Re: Using aria-labelledby instead of <label> element

We have recently used both techniques to give remediation advice to a 
client with something very similar where radio buttons were located in 
each cell. Both aria-labelledby and the use of title appear to function 
fine with keyboard and screen reader. We recommended using the aria 
technique unless backward compatibility was an issue. One point of 
consideration is whether your "data table" is really a data table in this 
context, or if it is actually a presentation table that is using the col 
and row headers as labels. That may seem like a fine distinction, but 
housing inputs in a data table can potentially affect the behaviour of 
some assistive technologies.

Michael Gower
i b m  i n t e r a c t i v e
1803 Douglas Street
Victoria, BC  V8T 5C3
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From:   Steve Faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>
To:     Ramón Corominas <listas@ramoncorominas.com>
Cc:     WAI Interest Group <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Date:   03/22/2012 09:47 AM
Subject:        Re: Using aria-labelledby instead of <label> element



Another possibility is to use the title attribute on the inputs to provide 
the label.

for example: 
http://www.paciellogroup.com/presentations/CSUN08/webapps/#slide24

regards
Stevef

On 22 March 2012 11:22, Ramón Corominas <listas@ramoncorominas.com> wrote:
Hi all,

We are developing a tool to manage different fields related to many 
records in a dataset. The information is presented as a data table to show 
and edit the values of each record, so the column headers act as labels 
for each field, and row headers identify each record. For example, imagine 
that you have a chess shop:

Columns: Piece, color, material, unit price
Rows: King, Queen, Rook, Knight, Bishop, Pawn

Thus, we need to construct the "label" for each field combining both row 
and column headers "Queen color", "Knight unit price", etc. We have tested 
aria-labelledby to do this, and it seems to work fine with all the screen 
readers and platforms that we have tested (JAWS & NVDA w/ IE & FF, 
VoiceOver w/ Safari). We have also seen that this technique has been 
submitted to the WCAG WG [1]. However, I cannot find it in the Techniques 
document, so I don't know if there is a reason to avoiding it.

What do you think? Would it be acceptable to use aria-labelledby as the 
only way to label a form control?

Thanks in advance,
Ramón.

[1] Associating multiple labels with a form control using ARIA-LABELLEDBY
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-wcag2-techs/2010Aug/0000.html





-- 
with regards

Steve Faulkner
Technical Director - TPG

www.paciellogroup.com | www.HTML5accessibility.com | 
www.twitter.com/stevefaulkner
HTML5: Techniques for providing useful text alternatives - 
dev.w3.org/html5/alt-techniques/
Web Accessibility Toolbar - 
www.paciellogroup.com/resources/wat-ie-about.html