Techniques for WCAG 2.0

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G71: Providing a help link on every Web page

Applicability

All technologies.

This technique relates to:

User Agent and Assistive Technology Support Notes

The example following does not work with JAWS—implicit labels are poorly supported, and JAWS does not read the Help link as part of the label before announcing the control (as required by the Success Criterion).

Description

The objective of this technique is to provide context sensitive help for users as they enter data in forms by providing at least one link to the help information on each Web page. The link targets a help page with information specific to that Web page. Another approach is to provide a help link for every interactive control. Positioning this link immediately before or after the control allows users to easily tab to it if they have problems in the control. Displaying the help information in a new browser window ensures that any data that has already been entered into the form will not be lost. NOTE: A link is not the only means to provide help.

Examples

Example 1

The example below shows a label element enclosing both an input form control, and a help link following the "input" in sequence. Including the help link within the label element allows screen reader users to have access to the help link when interacting with the input form control.

<form action="test.html">
	<label for="test">Test control
	<input type="text" name="test" id="test" />
	<a href="help.html" target="_blank">Help</a></label>
</form>

Tests

Procedure

  1. Identify a Web page that contains forms.

  2. Determine if there is at least one link to help information specific to completing the form on this Web page or other resource.

  3. Determine if there are links either before or after each interactive control to help information specific to that control.

Expected Results