Emergency Procedures

Other Sources

Department of Safety and Security

Laboratory Safety

Peer-to-Peer File Sharing and Copyright Law

Office of the General Counsel

COVID-19

Dartmouth Copyright Statement & Guidelines

Occupational Safety & Health

Emergency Resources

People using screen readers are not able to see the layout of a form. To make forms
accessible, they must define explicit text labels for each form control. 

Usually the best solution is to use a `<label>` element. The label may be linked to 
by the form control:

```html
<label for="name">Full name</label>
<input type="name" id="name">
```

or the `<label>` can be wrapped around the form control:

```html
<label>
    Full name <input type="name">
</label>
```

Buttons are different, as their labels are specified by the code for the button, e.g.

```html
<input type="submit" value="Send message">
<button>Send message</button>
```

Alternatively ARIA attributes, such as `aria-label` may be used, but this information
will not be conveyed to visual users. For more information, see [W3C's guide to labeling controls](https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/forms/labels/).

Hidden input fields (`<input type="hidden">`) do not require labels.
Note that the `placeholder` attribute 
[should not be used as an alternative to a label](https://www.w3.org/TR/html/sec-forms.html#the-placeholder-attribute),
nor should the `title` attribute.

## Custom roles

Note that this check considers the underlying accessible role of an element, which can be 
different from the tag itself.

For example, this `<div>` has a `role` of `button`, and so is expected to have a label, like
a button would.

```html
<div role="button"></div>
```

form-control-labels

June 2025

May 2025

Dartmouth College

Title / URL	Issues
Emergency Procedureswww.dartmouth.edu/prepare/procedures/	1
Other Sourceswww.dartmouth.edu/copyright/othersources.html	1
Department of Safety and Securitywww.dartmouth.edu/security/	1
Laboratory Safetywww.dartmouth.edu/ehs/chemical/	1
Peer-to-Peer File Sharing and Copyright Lawwww.dartmouth.edu/copyright/peer2peer/	1
Office of the General Counselwww.dartmouth.edu/legal/	1
COVID-19www.dartmouth.edu/ehs/covid-19.html	1
Dartmouth Copyright Statement & Guidelineswww.dartmouth.edu/copyright/	1
Occupational Safety & Healthwww.dartmouth.edu/ehs/occupational/	1
Emergency Resourceswww.dartmouth.edu/prepare/resources.html	1

Ensure form controls have labels

Dartmouth College

Where this issue has occurred