Business support and advice - Derby City Council

Call B4 You Serve - Derby City Council

Report it - Derby City Council

Family Hub and childcare - Derby City Council

Derby City Council homepage

Sign language service - Derby City Council

Advertising FAQs - Derby City Council

Animal licences - Derby City Council

Leisure and culture - Derby City Council

Commercial property searches - Derby City Council

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

January 2026

December 2025

Derby City Council

Title / URL	Issues
Business support and advice - Derby City Councilwww.derby.gov.uk/business/business-support-advice/	1
Call B4 You Serve - Derby City Councilwww.derby.gov.uk/housing/housing-options/call-b4-you-serve/	1
Report it - Derby City Councilwww.derby.gov.uk/report-it/	1
Family Hub and childcare - Derby City Councilwww.derby.gov.uk/community-and-living/family-hub-childcare/	1
Derby City Council homepagewww.derby.gov.uk/	1
Sign language service - Derby City Councilwww.derby.gov.uk/signing-service/	1
Advertising FAQs - Derby City Councilwww.derby.gov.uk/business/advertise-in-derby/advertising-faq/	1
Animal licences - Derby City Councilwww.derby.gov.uk/licensing/animal-licences/	1
Leisure and culture - Derby City Councilwww.derby.gov.uk/leisure-and-culture/	1
Commercial property searches - Derby City Councilwww.derby.gov.uk/business/commercial-property/searches/	1

Ensure form controls have labels

Derby City Council

Where this issue has occurred