Residential and home care provider business development | Sheffield City Council

Benefit fraud | Sheffield City Council

Libraries and archives | Sheffield City Council

Request a Council Tax refund | Sheffield City Council

A-Z of Services | Sheffield City Council

Family Hubs | Sheffield City Council

Job vacancies and volunteering | Sheffield City Council

News search | Sheffield City Council

Cookie policy | Sheffield City Council

Buy or rent small areas of land | Sheffield 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

October 2025

September 2025

Sheffield City Council

	Title / URL	Issues
	Residential and home care provider business development \| Sheffield City Councilwww.sheffield.gov.uk/business/provider-business	4
	Benefit fraud \| Sheffield City Councilwww.sheffield.gov.uk/benefits/benefit-fraud	4
	Libraries and archives \| Sheffield City Councilwww.sheffield.gov.uk/libraries-archives	4
	Request a Council Tax refund \| Sheffield City Councilwww.sheffield.gov.uk/council-tax/apply-council-tax-refund	4
	A-Z of Services \| Sheffield City Councilwww.sheffield.gov.uk/a-z	4
	Family Hubs \| Sheffield City Councilwww.sheffield.gov.uk/schools-childcare/family-hubs	4
	Job vacancies and volunteering \| Sheffield City Councilwww.sheffield.gov.uk/job-vacancies	4
	News search \| Sheffield City Councilwww.sheffield.gov.uk/news/search?f%5B0%5D=category%3A976	4
	Cookie policy \| Sheffield City Councilwww.sheffield.gov.uk/utilities/footer-links/cookie-policy	4
	Buy or rent small areas of land \| Sheffield City Councilwww.sheffield.gov.uk/business/buy-rent-small-land	4

Ensure form controls have labels

Sheffield City Council

Where this issue has occurred