Rule library Forms

Form elements should have a visible label

label-title-onlyBest practice

Ensure that every form element has a visible label and is not solely labeled using hidden labels, or the title or aria-describedby attributes

Who this affects

A field is labelled only by a title attribute, which is not shown to sighted users and is announced inconsistently.

How to fix it

Add a visible <label> bound with for/id.

Effort Low · ~10 min per field

How to check it by hand

Click each field's visible label. If focus does not move into the field, the label is not bound to it. Then tab through the form with a screen reader running and confirm every field announces its own purpose, not just its type.

Automated testing settles roughly a third of the WCAG success criteria. This rule is one an automated tool detects reliably — but a clean automated result is not proof of conformance.

Reference

Deque's technical write-up for this rule: label-title-only

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