JAWS In Forms Mode
I recently came across some articles that suggested that, when in Forms Mode, the JAWS screen reader would not speak text that was not enclosed in a form control tag (e.g. <label>.
Additional instructions are often part of online forms. Examples might include the correct format for a credit card expiry date or details of acceptable passwords.
The articles that I read were relatively old and referred to JAWS 4 or JAWS 5. However, the issues that they raised were sufficiently important enough for me to start wondering whether these problems still existed – either with newer versions of JAWS or other screen readers that ultilised a similar Forms Mode.
To that end, I’ve set up a forms test page that includes an example of a form with additional instructions outside the <label> tags and the same form with the instructions inside the <label> tags.
In each case, I’ve also provided a link to the anticipated screen reader output.
I’m interested in finding out whether my suppostions are still correct. Do some screen readers still ignore plain text within forms unless this text is enclosed in a form control element?
Mel, I’ve just tested the forms with JAWS 7.0
With forms mode off (default behaviour when tabbing), both forms miss out the information after the edit boxes.
With forms mode on, the information after the edit boxes is only read in the second form.
So I would say your supposition is correct. There is no explicit relationship between the plain text and the form control. Therefore it is not read along with the label. Because of this issue I would include this help information in the label before the form to guarantee that it is included. Look to http://www.legalandgeneral.com for real-world examples.
I’ve recently been testing a few things with JAWS 7.10 and I can confirm that only formelements are read out if the screen reader is left in forms mode. If you type something in a field and then leave forms mode to continue, the additional text provided in, say, a paragraph, is read out. The problem is that requires jumping in and out of forms mode. If you’re in forms mode and you decide to jump to the next form field when you are done, you will miss out anything that is not a form field with an associated label or fieldset legend.
There’s been similar testing on Access Matters recently: Quiz: Speaking forms labels – part 4