Indicating required form controls in Flash

Important Information about Techniques

See Understanding Techniques for WCAG Success Criteria for important information about the usage of these informative techniques and how they relate to the normative WCAG 2.1 success criteria. The Applicability section explains the scope of the technique, and the presence of techniques for a specific technology does not imply that the technology can be used in all situations to create content that meets WCAG 2.1.

Applicability

Note

Adobe has plans to stop updating and distributing the Flash Player at the end of 2020, and encourages authors interested in creating accessible web content to use HTML.

This technique relates to Success Criterion 3.3.2: Labels or Instructions (Sufficient as a way to meet G131: Providing descriptive labels).

Description

The objective of this technique is to provide a clear indication that a specific form control in a Web application or form is required for successful data submission. The word "required" is added to the form control's accessible name, and a visual indicator is placed next to the label.

Examples

Example 1: Adding the word "required" to the control's accessible name

This example shows how to use the Accessibility panel to indicate a field as being 'required' to users:

  1. Visually, place asterisk character or some other indication adjacent to the form control's label.
  2. Use the Accessibility panel to combine the word "required" with the control's label in the "Name" field.

This approach is illustrated in the screenshot below:

Figure 1Using the Accessibility panel to indicate a form control as being required

This is demonstrated in the working example of Adding the word "required" to the control's accessible name. The source of Adding the word "required" to the control's accessible name is available.

Tests

Procedure

For each required form control within a Flash movie, confirm that:

  • The required state is indicated visually
  • The required state is indicated textually using the 'Name' field in the Accessibility panel

Expected Results

  • Each of the above is true