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Accessible Form controls  (#635)
Issue

Please enhance WebGUI::Form::Control and subclasses such as:
 
WebGUI::Form::Checkbox
WebGUI::Form::SelectBox
WebGUI::Form::YesNo
WebGUI::Form::Text
 

to add accessibiltity features. That is, we'd like the ability to add parameters to calls to these and related classes so that we can easily produce "Accessible Form Controls" as described athttp://www.webaim.org/techniques/forms/screen_reader.php#labels

As an example, WebGUI generates the following (http://demo.plainblack.com/demo1211322738_678/home):
     
<td class="formDescription" valign="top">
Computer Type
</td>
<td class="tableData" valign="top">
<input type="radio" name="computer_type" value="Mac"  />Mac<br />
<input type="radio" name="computer_type" value="PC"  />PC<br />
<input type="radio" name="computer_type" value="Linux"  />Linux<br />
<span class="formSubtext">
<br />
</span>
</td>

to be accessible, it should generate something more like

 <td>
<fieldset>
<legend>Computer Type</legend> <br />
<input id="mac" type="radio" name="radiobutton3" value="radiobutton">
<label for="mac">Mac </label><br />
<input id="pc" type="radio" name="radiobutton3" value="radiobutton">
<label for="pc">PC</label><br />
<input id="linux" type="radio" name="radiobutton3" value="radiobutton">
<label for="linux">Linux</label><br />
</fieldset></td>

which includes the fieldset tag around the radio buttons, a single legend for the fieldset, and an id attribute in the input tag this is different for each value.

Susan B

Comments
Graham
0
9/16/2008 9:53 am

I'm working on this, but a certain amount of this won't be able to be done until 8.0.

Graham
0
9/16/2008 11:32 am

I've added fieldsets around YesNo, CheckList, and RadioList, and attached the labels better for Radio and YesNo controls.

Adding the legend would involve making larger changes to the Forms system and TabForm.  That won't be possible until 8.0, and will come with a lot of other changes to forms.  Leaving this open for that work.

serif
0
11/18/2009 1:13 pm
Actually, an accessible form would look more like this:

<fieldset>
    <legend>Computer Type</legend>
    
    <input id="mac" type="radio" name="computer_type" value="mac" />
    <label for="mac">Mac</label>
    
    <input id="pc" type="radio" name="computer_type" value="pc" />
    <label for="pc">PC</label>
    
    <input id="linux" type="radio" name="computer_type" value="linux">
    <label for="linux">Linux</label>
</fieldset>

In sbaur's recommendation above, the same value ("radiobutton3") is being passed through for each field, which makes it unclear which option the user has actually selected.

What I would like to see for checkboxes and radio buttons alike is the ability to specify different values for the label and value attributes for that field. Presently, they have to be the same (so if I just want the value to be "yes" or "agree", that has to be the label as well, instead of a more human-friendly sentence). I had to hardcode an entire DataForm template recently in order to have a decent-looking checkbox that also collected the data I needed.
julied
0
5/26/2011 10:20 am
Accessibility needs to be ALL fields in the data form. I just looked at the beta demo and currently the data form is doing some label stuff for the radio buttons, but it's doing it incorrectly - not as shown above (e.g. the label tag must have a for=id information in it). Accessibility is a federal law for all government sites. This needs to take a pretty high priority in my opinion. There should be labels for all of the information in the form and the opportunity to do fieldsets and legends to group other parts of the form besides just radio buttons or check boxes. For example, we should be able to do a fieldset and legend for "Mailing Address" and "Billing Address" so that a screen reader will differentiate between the two city fields when it reads it to them. We desperately need a CMS that will help us as an organization meet the accessibility demands required by law and needed by other organizations so that our websites are accessible by everyone. Accessibility is just as important as speed in WebGUI 8.
Details
Ticket Status Pending  
Rating0.0 
Submitted By sbaur  
Date Submitted2008-05-20 
Assigned To unassigned  
Date Assigned 2012-05-22  
Assigned By  
What to improve? WebGUI Stable  
URLrfe/request-for-enhancement/accessible-form-controls
Karma
Difficulty 2  
Karma So Far8552
Karma Rank4276.00
Keywords
Ticket History
5/26/2011
12:31 PM
2000 karma transferred sbaur
5/26/2011
11:21 AM
800 karma transferred julied
4/13/2011
4:12 PM
701 karma transferred eleger81
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