I'm sitting here with Neil Drumm at Net2 and we just tested the out-of-the-box Drupal theme (with the search feature implemented). The default search box does not have a label (as required by the 508 Guidelines).

I'd also like to see the XHTML and Accessibility standards established for drupal at http://drupal.org/node/318

Thanks for listening and making such a great open source system!

Glenda (the mostly goodwitch)

CommentFileSizeAuthor
#3 search.module_r1.198_66595_1.patch675 bytesAjK
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Comments

pietrocap’s picture

pietrocap CreditAttribution: pietrocap commented

Hi,
the solution to the problem of the label missing in search box is trivial if you are able to insert one line of code in search.module.
You can find at http://pietrocap.altervista.org/?q=node/12 an article about this issue.

magico’s picture

magico CreditAttribution: magico commented
Version: 4.7.1 » x.y.z

Confirmed

AjK’s picture

AjK CreditAttribution: AjK commented
Status: Active » Needs review
FileSize
search.module_r1.198_66595_1.patch675 bytes

Attached patch applies as per comment #1 link

edmund.kwok’s picture

edmund.kwok CreditAttribution: edmund.kwok commented

Patch works on fresh HEAD.

Would it be better to let the users decide whether they want a label for the search box? Aesthetics is one thing and accesibility is another. Probabaly a checkbox to show or hide the search box label?

magico’s picture

magico CreditAttribution: magico commented

@edkwh: we must avoid things that could be considered "features", as a new option checkbox would be.

AjK’s picture

AjK CreditAttribution: AjK commented
Category: bug » feature

No need to avoid, lets mark it a feature then. It's really not a bug anyway.

ChrisKennedy’s picture

ChrisKennedy CreditAttribution: ChrisKennedy commented
Version: x.y.z » 6.x-dev
Status: Needs review » Reviewed & tested by the community

Nice, patch still applies :)

RTBC.

Steven’s picture

Steven CreditAttribution: Steven commented

The usability of a standard box + search button is good enough for non-impaired users, and the extra label would undoubtedly break many existing themes. isn't there a way to improve accessibility without having a visible label in the normal output? We could always set it position: absolute; left: -1000em; and even provide a standard CSS class for such accessibility hints.

ChrisKennedy’s picture

ChrisKennedy CreditAttribution: ChrisKennedy commented

imo it should be up to the individual theme to hide this label. Honestly it doesn't seem like much of a burden to possibly re-style a label when upgrading themes to d6.

douggreen’s picture

douggreen CreditAttribution: douggreen commented

I'm not sure what accessibility is being added here since the button already says this. And while the argument can be made that it's easy to style the label out, it's equally easy to add the label through either a form_alter, a css :before (not 100% browser compatible, but works), or by theming theme_search_theme_form.

-1

Gábor Hojtsy’s picture

Gábor Hojtsy
he/him
Primary language Hungarian
Location Hungary
CreditAttribution: Gábor Hojtsy commented
Status: Reviewed & tested by the community » Fixed

Well, I agree that it gets better on screen readers, if there is an actual label to read out/jump to when navigating the interface, even if this label is not displayed with whatever technology (negative margins for example). Those not concerned with accessibility or can't stand this label there can display:none it or can form_alter it out. This is a long standing debate, and as people pointed out, we are getting more and more customizability options, so this is less of a push on the actual site implementors.

Anonymous’s picture

(not verified) CreditAttribution: commented
Status: Fixed » Closed (fixed)