Campus Map

The Office of Research - Office of Research

Home - School of Health Professions

Home - Human Resources

First time visit: View without clicking anything

Home - Graduate School

Home - Privacy

World-Renowned Business School in Alabama - UAB Collat School of Business

Home - UAB News

Home - Students

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

January 2026

December 2025

University of Alabama at Birmingham

Title / URL	Issues
Campus Mapwww.uab.edu/map/	11
The Office of Research - Office of Researchwww.uab.edu/research/home/	3
Home - School of Health Professionswww.uab.edu/shp/home/	1
Home - Human Resourceswww.uab.edu/humanresources/home/	1
First time visit: View without clicking anythingwww.uab.edu/home/	1
Home - Graduate Schoolwww.uab.edu/graduate/	1
Home - Privacywww.uab.edu/privacy/	1
World-Renowned Business School in Alabama - UAB Collat School of Businesswww.uab.edu/business/home/	1
Home - UAB Newswww.uab.edu/news/	1
Home - Studentswww.uab.edu/students/home/	1

Ensure form controls have labels

University of Alabama at Birmingham

Where this issue has occurred