Signs it is time to revisit accessible forms

The gap between knowing this and actually doing it is where most teams lose ground. A few signals that accessible forms is due some attention.

Most of it is correctness rather than charity: use the right element and much of it happens automatically. It rarely shows up as a line item, which is exactly why it slips.

The signals

• Nobody can say when it was last reviewed
• The answer depends on who you ask
• Every input needs a real label element
• Errors must be announced, not only coloured red

How to approach it

Group related fields so the structure is clear. Getting it slightly wrong is survivable. Ignoring it entirely is not. If two people in the business would answer this differently, that gap is the actual problem.

The short version

The cost of retrofitting accessibility is several times the cost of building it in. Three things worth confirming about accessible forms before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Group related fields so the structure is clear — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If you are not sure where your systems currently stand on this, it takes us about an hour to find out.