Publications | Ontario Tech University

Student life | Ontario Tech University

Programs

Undergraduate | Ontario Tech University

Direct entry co-op | Programs

Undergraduate | Programs

Archived publications | Ontario Tech University

Our priorities | Ontario Tech University

404 - file not found | Ontario Tech University

First time visit: View without clicking anything

Forms should always contain a submit button, otherwise some people using
accessible technologies may not be able to submit the form.

Submit buttons are `<input>` elements with a type attribute of `submit` or
`image`, or `<button>` elements with type `submit`.

## Rationale 

Many users expect to be able to press enter in a form to submit it. However,
this is not always possible.

Users of some assistive technologies may (depending on the technology) only
be able to press a button to submit the form. In the absence of a submit
button, the user may not be able to submit the form.

In addition, the absence of a submit button suggests that the form may 
provide an automatic 'change of context', i.e. major change to the user 
interface without the user choosing to do so. This can be highly disorientating
to some users.

## Methodology

* All `<form>` elements on the page are tested separately.
* Check whether the <form> contains any of the following elements, and that the elements are visible
  when the page first loads:
  * `<input>`
  * `<textarea>`
  * `<checkbox>`
  * `<select>`
  * `<button>`
* If the form contains any of the above elements, then it is considered to
  need a submit button. If a submit button is missing, then a failure is reported.

### Field visibility check

The check for field visibility (above) is designed to ignore forms which perform functions not normally
associated with user interaction, such as tracking code, or ASPX forms which wrap every page 
but which don't contain any interactive elements. These are common potential false positives.

A trade-off here is that some forms may be invisible when a page loads, and later revealed to
a user following some interaction. If these are missing a submit button, Silktide will not detect them.
In practice, this false negative is far less likely than the false positive this prevents. 

## Further reading

* [WCAG 3.2.2 - On Input](https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/on-input.html)
* [Technique H32](https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/H32.html)

form-submit-required

January 2026

December 2025

Ontario Tech University

Title / URL	Issues
Publications \| Ontario Tech Universityontariotechu.ca/about/publications/index.php	1
Student life \| Ontario Tech Universityontariotechu.ca/future-students/student-life/index.php	1
Programsontariotechu.ca/programs/index.php	1
Undergraduate \| Ontario Tech Universityontariotechu.ca/future-students/undergraduate/index.php	1
Direct entry co-op \| Programsontariotechu.ca/programs/undergraduate/co-op.php	1
Undergraduate \| Programsontariotechu.ca/programs/undergraduate/index.php	1
Archived publications \| Ontario Tech Universityontariotechu.ca/about/publications/archives.php	1
Our priorities \| Ontario Tech Universityontariotechu.ca/about/priorities.php	1
404 - file not found \| Ontario Tech Universityontariotechu.ca/invented-url-for-404-page	1
First time visit: View without clicking anythingontariotechu.ca/	1

Add a submit button to all forms

Ontario Tech University

Where this issue has occurred