[Koha-bugs] [Bug 11566] Fixing accessibility on OPAC

[bugzilla-daemon at bugs.koha-community.org]

http://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=11566

--- Comment #14 from Marc Véron <veron at veron.ch> ---
(In reply to Owen Leonard from comment #11)
> (In reply to Aleisha Amohia from comment #2)
> > Removed unnecessary fieldset around Submit button
> 
> I assume these patches are based on recommendations that a fieldset not be
> used without a corresponding <legend>. In this case the fieldset is being
> used as a somewhat-semantic grouping element in order to provide a logical
> hook for CSS. Removing the fieldset doesn't solve any accessibility problem
> in my opinion.

I did some research on the use of fieldsets:

"Fieldset and legend should only be used to associate groups of controls when a
higher level description (i.e., the legend) is necessary. Single checkboxes or
basic radio buttons (such as male/female for gender) that make sense from their
labels alone do not require fieldset and legend. Nested fieldsets should
generally be avoided."
Source: http://webaim.org/techniques/forms/controls


"There are [in addition to radio or check boxes, MV] other use cases, and in
general the <fieldset> element can also be used to strongly section a form.
Because of its influence over assistive technology, the <fieldset> element is
one of the key elements to building accessible forms; however it is your
responsibility not to abuse it. If possible, each time you build a form, try to
listen to how a screen reader interprets it. If it sounds odd, it's a good hint
that your form structure need to be improved."
Source:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/HTML/Forms/How_to_structure_an_HTML_form#The_%3Cfieldset%3E_and_%3Clegend%3E_elements


My conclusion:

If I look now at the results of http://wave.webaim.org/  for e.g.
.../cgi-bin/koha/opac-memberentry.pl, it does not complain about fieldset tags
around single controls (e.g. Submit button). It only complains about a missing
legend for it.
However, the fieldset has a style: <fieldset class="action">
This style used in opac.css:
fieldset.action {
    border: 0 none;
    clear: both;
    float: none;
    margin: 0;
    padding: 1em 0 0.3em;
    width: auto;
}

Simply removing the fieldset tag would have an impact on the look and feel of
the website.

So in my opinion it is better to be very careful about removing tags and rather
to add a legend where the validator complains about missing legends (as some of
the patches do).

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