How to Design Accessible Forms with HTML and CSS
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Components of a form
- Accessible Forms with HTML
- Conclusion
Introduction
Forms are integral part in building a website. They are used to collect data from users when they submit their details. Forms are important in the interaction of users submitting their sign up form, login in form, subscribing to newsletter or sending message to receive feedback. Creating accessible forms is important to everyone especially the screen readers to fill the form without any problem.
Components of a form
A form is composed of different components such as
- form: this is the container that accept all other form elements like input tag, submit button, textarea, checkboxes and radio button
<form></form>
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- input: this is the HTML element that accepts the user details. The input tag is served depending on the purpose of input; text, number, password, email among other things
<form>
<input type="text" />
<input type="email" />
<input type="password" />
<input type="radio" />
<input type="checkbox" />
<input type="file" />
<input type="range" />
<input type="color" />
<input type="date"/>
</form>
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- label: this tag that give an outline of the detail to fill in an input. It associate with the input tag.
<form> <label for="email">Email</label> <input type="email">
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- textarea: this is an multi-line input tag that accept 524,288 characters by default except the maxlength attribute is set up to a value. It is used to accept reviews, messages and comments from the users
<form> <label for="message">Message:</label> <textarea>
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- select: this element is for creating a dropdown in which the users are able to select one option by default or more options when the attribute multiple is being used.
<form> <select>
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- checkbox: this element allow users to select one or more options.
<form> <label for="subscribe"></label> <input type="checkbox">
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- button: this tag will the users the opportunity to submit their details upon completion. These details are submitted to server.
<form> <button type="submit">Submit</button> </form>
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Accessible forms with HTML
- Include sematic tags
Using the right sematic tags such as