Mel wrote:
on 13/10/2006 19:29 Rob O'Rourke said the following:
I thought the legend tag was supposed to offer some effects for
screen readers when reading out the form controls. Out of curiosity
do you know which screen reader it is?
JAWS? I've come across some evidence that suggest that, when in Forms
Mode, JAWS will only read text enclosed in form controls. Assuming
that JAWS correctly identifies legend as a bona fide form control, it
should render the legend before reading out the inputs. Text within
the form tags that aren't enclosed in form controls, however, may be
missed.
I'm currently trying to find out if this is still the case with the
latest version of JAWS and whether it's an issue with other screen
readers. If it is, it impacts on additional text/instructions that
might accompany specific inputs.
JAWS isn't all that good if thats the case... I'm interested in hearing
what you find out, i tried installing JAWS once but it broke everything
so I've not dared since.
If I we're you I'd just give the legends an accesskey, then you have
navigation across more of browser land.
How do you communicate the approprate accesskey to the user? My own
research amongst keyboard navigators suggest that very few, if any,
will bother to 'learn' accesskeys associated with a specific site.
After all, would you? If people don't already 'know' the relevant
accesskey, its usefulness becomes debatable.
Mel
Fair point but it depends on a lot of things, if the form is used
regularly like a login or cms backend or shopping basket then accesskeys
couldn't hurt, although it would require some preamble text to let the
user what they are. If Personally if I really needed them I'd learn them
but even if the user can't be bothered learning them it couldn't hurt to
have them in there whether its on a legend or not.
Interesting topic this one.
Take it easy,
Rob
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