Ryan,

         Are you talking here, on the Groups.io site?

         I ask because this may be an issue of "changing web coding 
conventions."  The button for search has no label at all, but is presented as 
the conventional magnifying glass icon.  To it's immediate left is the edit box 
where one would enter one's search keywords, and it has the word "Search" in 
that box that immediately disappears when you begin typing your keywords.   The 
use of those pre-filled-in identifiers in edit boxes, that clearly are not 
really the same as text you really fill in because they vanish as soon as you 
begin entering text, have been showing up with more and more frequency.  I 
don't even know what the web coding terminology is for this technique, but JAWS 
should be announcing that pre-filled-in identifier in precisely the same way it 
would have announced a label used for an edit box, but  I have no idea if it 
does, or if it does at what version that started happening.

         This technique makes a lot more sense in a lot of ways than having 
separate labels sitting outside given boxes.  It really de-clutters a screen 
and, if announced correctly by accessibility software, would immediately tell 
you what you would be entering in that box just like the old label would.  I 
will have to bring up this webpage the next time I have a session with one of 
my clients to see what the various versions of JAWS actually do when you land 
in an edit box coded in this style.

         I feel sorry for the folks who are coding accessibility software, 
particularly related to web browsing, because conventions are so fluid, still, 
in that part of computing.  HTML code seems to be in a perpetual "late beta" 
state where new stuff is getting thrown into the mix with utterly amazing speed 
and very little, if any, warning.  It is well-nigh impossible to keep up with, 
and being reactive is often the only choice.  That definitely leaves periods of 
accessibility gap.

Brian

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