Support Us | The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

Research: Who We Are | The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

Discover Central | The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

Outreach and Fair Access | The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

Courses | The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

Page not found | The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

Student profiles | The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

Postgraduate Courses | The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama: Home

Alumni | The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

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

October 2025

September 2025

Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

	Title / URL	Issues
	Support Us \| The Royal Central School of Speech and Dramawww.cssd.ac.uk/support-us	1
	Research: Who We Are \| The Royal Central School of Speech and Dramawww.cssd.ac.uk/Research/who-we-are	1
	Discover Central \| The Royal Central School of Speech and Dramawww.cssd.ac.uk/Apply/discover-central	1
	Outreach and Fair Access \| The Royal Central School of Speech and Dramawww.cssd.ac.uk/outreach	1
	Courses \| The Royal Central School of Speech and Dramawww.cssd.ac.uk/courses	1
	Page not found \| The Royal Central School of Speech and Dramawww.cssd.ac.uk/invented-url-for-404-page	1
	Student profiles \| The Royal Central School of Speech and Dramawww.cssd.ac.uk/student-profiles	1
	Postgraduate Courses \| The Royal Central School of Speech and Dramawww.cssd.ac.uk/postgraduate-courses	1
	The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama: Homewww.cssd.ac.uk/	1
	Alumni \| The Royal Central School of Speech and Dramawww.cssd.ac.uk/alumni	1

Ensure form controls have labels

Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

Where this issue has occurred