The Underscore Archives

On 20/12/2007, Rick Hurst <rick.hurst at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm having a minor dilemma over how to handle the following:-
>
> I have a table* based form like the following:-
>
> +--------------------+-----------------+---------+-------------------+
> |                             |  location       |   time   |  date
>            |
> +--------------------+-----------------+---------+-------------------+
> |  (radio button )  |  Brissle         | 9am    |  20 dec 2007  |
> +--------------------+-----------------+---------+-------------------+
> |  (radio button  ) |  Brissle         | 10am  |  20 dec 2007  |
> +--------------------+-----------------+---------+-------------------+
>
> my question is what to do about labels - do the table headings count
> as labels? or do I still need to add label tags?
>
> If I need to add label tags, how do I get around the fact that the
> label really would need to span 3 cells, as the info in the location,
> date and time columns need to be grouped together to make a meaningful
> label.

I'm certain this has been discussed at length on WebAIM, and many
people's position was that this design pattern is, from an
accessibility perspective, not good.

You might be able to do something with hidden (off-screen, not
display: none) labels, but making this kind of matrix of form
associations is nigh-impossible in the linearized world of the screen
reader. Not that they're the only form of AT, but you know what I
mean.

> * yeah I know, no I don't have the opprtunity to to change it to a
> non-table format

Understood.

Tim