News & Events : Earlham College

About : Earlham College

Giving : Earlham College :

Diversity, equity and inclusion : Earlham College

Rankings : Earlham College

Get Involved : Earlham College

Office of Accounting : Earlham College

Faculty : Earlham College

Cost and affordability : Earlham College

Alumni : Earlham College

To comply with WCAG 2.1, fields must identify what their purpose is _programmatically_. If done correctly,
this allows browsers to help users fill in forms with known information, such as their name and email address.

This is accomplished via the `autocomplete` attribute, which should be set to a 
[supported value](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Attributes/autocomplete) wherever
appropriate, e.g. 

```html
<label for="name">
  First Name
</label>
<input id="name" type="text" autocomplete="given-name">
```

For fields where `autocomplete` is not appropriate, e.g. due to security, or the field not matching the
specification, the specific field should be ignored.

## Methodology

* All fields which could support `autocomplete` (e.g. text fields)
  are checked. Other fields - like dropdown menus - are ignored.
* The [accessible name](https://www.w3.org/TR/accname-1.2/) of each field is considered. In most cases this
  will be the `<label>` for the field.
* If the name matches a known pattern the field 
  must have an appropriate `autocomplete` value specified.
  For example, an `<input>` with type `text` with a label of 
  "First Name" would be expected to have an autocomplete value 
  of `given-name` or similar.

Note that using `autocomplete="on"` is not sufficient to pass this check, a
specific named autocomplete value must be used. See the
[supported values](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Attributes/autocomplete).

## Troubleshooting

If a field is a false positive, check whether the field has an 
appropriate accessible name (i.e. a `<label>` or `aria-label`).

If the label is incorrect, Silktide may assume that the field 
requires `autocomplete` where it does not. You should fix the 
label to avoid this.

Otherwise, you can simply ignore the specific field.

## More information

* [How to use HTML 5.2 attributes](https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Techniques/html/H98)

identify-input-purpose

March 2025

February 2025

Earlham College

Title / URL	Issues
News & Events : Earlham Collegeearlham.edu/news-events/	12
About : Earlham Collegeearlham.edu/about/	8
Giving : Earlham College :earlham.edu/giving/	8
Diversity, equity and inclusion : Earlham Collegeearlham.edu/about/dei/	8
Rankings : Earlham Collegeearlham.edu/about/rankings/	8
Get Involved : Earlham Collegeearlham.edu/alumni/get-involved/	8
Office of Accounting : Earlham Collegeearlham.edu/accounting-office/	8
Faculty : Earlham Collegeearlham.edu/faculty/	8
Cost and affordability : Earlham Collegeearlham.edu/cost-affordability/	8
Alumni : Earlham Collegeearlham.edu/alumni/	8

Identify the purpose of fields programmatically

Earlham College

Where this issue has occurred