County News | Thurston County

Events | Thurston County

First time visit: View without clicking anything

GeoData Center | Thurston County

Report Street Flooding | Thurston County

Homepage | Thurston County

Title Transactions | Thurston County

Living in Thurston County | Thurston County

Treasurer | Thurston County

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

May 2025

April 2025

Thurston County, Washington

Title / URL	Issues
County News \| Thurston Countywww.thurstoncountywa.gov/news	4
Events \| Thurston Countywww.thurstoncountywa.gov/events-list	2
Events \| Thurston Countywww.thurstoncountywa.gov/events	2
First time visit: View without clicking anythingwww.thurstoncountywa.gov/	1
GeoData Center \| Thurston Countywww.thurstoncountywa.gov/departments/geodata-center	1
Report Street Flooding \| Thurston Countywww.thurstoncountywa.gov/report-street-flooding	1
Homepage \| Thurston Countywww.thurstoncountywa.gov/	1
Title Transactions \| Thurston Countywww.thurstoncountywa.gov/departments/auditor/licensing-services/title-transactions	1
Living in Thurston County \| Thurston Countywww.thurstoncountywa.gov/living-thurston-county	1
Treasurer \| Thurston Countywww.thurstoncountywa.gov/departments/treasurer	1

Ensure form controls have labels

Thurston County, Washington

Where this issue has occurred