Accessible Radio buttons in InDesign

[jeffvk]

What is the correct set up in InDesign for radio buttons to be accessible once they export to a PDF?

You have Name, Description, and Value as inputs in InDesign.

On WEBAIM, the Name should be the same for all the choices. InDesign states this too.

On WEBAIM, the tool tip should be the same too because this is read before the option. The tool tip comes from the Description in InDesign I thnk.

On WEBAIM, the Value should match the text that appears with each button.

When I do this and test in CommonLook, the PDF shows a failed test. "4 buttons share the same variable name and hence would have the same tool-tip."

Isn't that what we want?

Guideline 4.1, test 4.1.2, WCAG 2.1

[Ashutosh_Mishra]

Hi Jeff,

Sorry to hear about your experience. Do you see this behavior with a specific file export? Would it be possible for you to share your workflow using screenshots or a small video? This information will help as assist you accordingly.

I'd request you to check out this help article to know how you can work with Radio Buttons in InDesign.

Hope it helps.

Regards,

Ashutosh

[jeffvk]

Not a helpful answer.

[Chad Chelius · Accepted solution]

For radio buttons, the name is going to be the same for each field as well as the tooltip. but the value will be unique for each field. I'm assuming your setting this up in InDesign which would tag the form fields on export which is key. Actually you have to export using PDF interactive (not print) in order for the fields to export. I did a test on my side and I do see the error you describe using the Commonlook validator. This is fundamentally how radio buttons work so I think this is a bug because the PAC checker doesn't identify this as an error. 

[jeffvk]

Thanks Chad.

I will continue with the process you and InDesign recommend.

Here is the reply from CommonLook:

"Let’s take a simple example – you’re filling out a form and the question is “What’s your gender?”  Options are “Female,” “Male,” and “Prefer not to say.”  When three radio buttons are in a group like this, so that you get the mutual exclusivity you want, then they all get the same name (like “Gender Question”) and the tooltip for all three would be something like “What’s your gender?”.  But, when someone is using AT and reading just the tooltips, they are asked “What’s your gender” three times (once for each radio button) but they don’t know which radio button is for the option they need to choose.  That said, some implementations have workarounds for this which is probably met by the WebAIM guidance you found.  But, technically speaking, this is going against what the current PDF spec requires.   CommonLook also has a workaround that we teach so that radio buttons can be both mutually exclusive and have individual tooltips, in keeping with what the standard requires.

The good news, like I said, is that this will be much easier to solve when PDF/UA-2 is released and supported."

Seems like there is work to be done here but maybe a bewtter solution is coming.

[Chad Chelius]

I understand Commonlook's response in that the field name is repeated for each field however I disagree that the user doesn't know which radio button is for the option they need to choose because in addition to the field name, the value is also voiced. So yes it's going to keep saying "what's your gender" but it's also going to say "what's your gender radio button male" "what's your gender" radio button female. I tested this using NVDA by the way.

[jeffvk]

That was my thinking as well when I built the form, so I was confused on the error in CommonLook.

Thanks again.

The LinkedIn Learning/Lynda InDesign forms video needs to come back.