Answering the question before last
Imagine this scenario
You were being asked a series of questions but there is a twist. the answers that you must give are actually for the previous question.
For example:
Q What day is it today?
Q What is your name?
A Friday
Q Give me the name of a fruit
A Clive
Q Name a famous artist
A Orange
Q Who is the singer in U2?
A Van Gogh
This actually happened with my team!
This was precisely the experience encountered by our trio of blind testers during a recent audit.
Forms have always posed a challenge for them, and this particular one, at first glance, appeared visually impeccable. Each field seemed to be correctly labelled – the title field had the word "Title," the first name field had "First Name," and so forth. Everything seemed perfectly in order.
However, despite the apparent correctness, Mede, Krista, and Lleona encountered difficulties in filling out the form. It wasn't until I examined the code later that I realized the labels were not correctly associated with the form fields. Instead, they were separate and appeared in the next line of code. This meant that their screen readers were reading out the labels after the corresponding field, leading our testers to naturally assume that the subsequent field was the one being referred to.
It brought to mind a famous sketch – perhaps you recall it. The classic 2 Ronnies Mastermind parody sketch perfectly encapsulates this situation. The sketch features the two Ronnies, one posing questions and the other comfortably seated in the iconic black leather chair, answering the question before last. The entire experience served as a poignant reminder that appearances can be deceiving – just because something looks correct doesn't guarantee it is!
Caption: The 2 Ronnies in their renowned Mastermind parody sketch, "Answering the Question Before Last." One Ronnie is posing the questions, while the other is comfortably seated in the famous black leather chair.
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Clive Loseby
Access by Design
Beautiful, WCAG Compliant, Accessible Website Design
Delivering an Outstanding Website Accessibility Audit
Award-winning Web Design, Chichester
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