Council tax | St Albans City and District Council

St Albans City and District Council

Working together | St Albans City and District Council

First time visit: View without clicking anything

News and what's on | St Albans City and District Council

Housing | St Albans City and District Council

Community and living | St Albans City and District Council

Climate and Sustainability | St Albans City and District Council

Food, hygiene and safety | St Albans City and District Council

Business and licensing | St Albans City and District 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

St Albans City & District Council

	Title / URL	Issues
	Council tax \| St Albans City and District Councilwww.stalbans.gov.uk/council-tax	1
	St Albans City and District Councilwww.stalbans.gov.uk/	1
	Working together \| St Albans City and District Councilwww.stalbans.gov.uk/working-together	1
	First time visit: View without clicking anythingwww.stalbans.gov.uk/	1
	News and what's on \| St Albans City and District Councilwww.stalbans.gov.uk/news-and-whats	1
	Housing \| St Albans City and District Councilwww.stalbans.gov.uk/housing	1
	Community and living \| St Albans City and District Councilwww.stalbans.gov.uk/community-and-living	1
	Climate and Sustainability \| St Albans City and District Councilwww.stalbans.gov.uk/sustainability-and-climate	1
	Food, hygiene and safety \| St Albans City and District Councilwww.stalbans.gov.uk/food-hygiene-and-safety	1
	Business and licensing \| St Albans City and District Councilwww.stalbans.gov.uk/business-and-licensing	1

Ensure form controls have labels

St Albans City & District Council

Where this issue has occurred