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Grousing about Web survey forms

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From: jeffgutsell@fuse.net
Date: Mar 21, 2024 10:33AM

Hi All,

We all know that the competition is fierce to develop the least accessible
Web forms. I want to give the trophy to the general category of Web-based
surveys. I think the Webaim survey was almost the only accessible survey I
have ever seen.

I struggled with one on Monday that really was a laugher. The pages had
many headings that were just one or two words that often made little sense.
They had a dozen places where they wanted me to rank things on a scale of
1-5 but provided no legend or label to clarify what they wanted. I tried
switching into JAWS mode to navigate around the pages to find some text
without luck. The so-called radio buttons were announced by JAWS as "toggle
button" but were scripted to allow only one choice Many of the pages had an
unlabeled text box where I provided an earful about the issues.



Later, I got to thinking that many of these surveys are provided by vendors
that might be targeted with some educational material. It might be valuable
to compare the Webaim survey this year to the industry practices.

I suppose my rant amounts to "tilting at windmills." I just think about how
half a dozen of the major business sites I use have gotten much better in
recent years, but there has been no similar improvement in most surveys.



Jeff Gutsell