Accessible Forms
Understand what is required to write accessible forms.
Forms: can’t live with them, can’t live without them! It’s nearly impossible to create an application or website without eventually needing a way to collect information from your users. This can be as simple as a couple of text inputs to get their name and email address, or it could be a complex, multipage situation requiring several different types of inputs, state management, and more.
Why are forms so challenging?
Forms are infamously difficult to do well because there are so many variables that need to be taken into account when you’re putting one together. From the design and UX to the actual technical implementation, there are a lot of places where it’s easy to make a small mistake. What we have to keep in mind is that when we’re asking our users to trust us with their (potentially sensitive, personal) information, even a small mistake can be a big deal! The longer the form, the larger the request we’re making of our users. If they feel anything less than 100% certain that there’s going to be something worthwhile at the end, there’s a very high risk of them hitting a stumbling block in our form and deciding that it’s simply not worth the effort.
That being said, a good form can be a real thing of beauty. It’s one of the few places in our websites and applications where we get to have a conversation with our users. It’s not just a one-way street of us serving them content. It’s a chance for us to build trust, learn about our users, and infuse a little bit of personality into our application. We have the opportunity to do this well and strengthen our bond with the user. However, when we fumble it, we run the risk of doing a lot of damage. Forms are high-risk/high-reward, which makes it important for us, as developers, to approach them with intention and thoughtfulness.
Accessibility considerations
Forms are crucial for developers to get right when it comes to accessibility because we’re collecting important user information. A user may be unable to complete a form or unable to provide accurate information when the inputs are inaccessible. When this happens, we’ve not only failed our users by making them deal with a tedious and frustrating experience, but we’ve also compromised the reliability and accuracy of the data we’re collecting. This puts our users in the difficult situation of demanding the impossible from them. We’re asking ...