First time visit: View without clicking anything

Home | Maitland City Council

Public Exhibition | Maitland City Council

Rangers | Maitland City Council

Pets & Animals | Maitland City Council

Jobs at Council | Maitland City Council

Building & Renovations | Maitland City Council

404 error | Maitland City Council

Planning & Development | Maitland City Council

Pay my rates | Maitland 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

Maitland City Council

Title / URL	Issues
First time visit: View without clicking anythingwww.maitland.nsw.gov.au/	8
Home \| Maitland City Councilwww.maitland.nsw.gov.au/	8
Public Exhibition \| Maitland City Councilwww.maitland.nsw.gov.au/council/public-exhibition	5
Rangers \| Maitland City Councilwww.maitland.nsw.gov.au/services/rangers	4
Pets & Animals \| Maitland City Councilwww.maitland.nsw.gov.au/residents/pets-animals	4
Jobs at Council \| Maitland City Councilwww.maitland.nsw.gov.au/council/jobs-at-council	4
Building & Renovations \| Maitland City Councilwww.maitland.nsw.gov.au/residents/building-renovations	4
404 error \| Maitland City Councilwww.maitland.nsw.gov.au/invented-url-for-404-page	4
Planning & Development \| Maitland City Councilwww.maitland.nsw.gov.au/services/planning-development	4
Pay my rates \| Maitland City Councilwww.maitland.nsw.gov.au/residents/rates/pay-my-rates	4

Ensure form controls have labels

Maitland City Council

Where this issue has occurred