Form accessibility

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An online form must comply with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Guidelines (WAG) and be AA compliant. This includes Microsoft Forms.

Accessible forms are designed and developed so they can be used by as many people as possible. This includes those with:

  • impaired vision
  • impaired hearing
  • motor difficulties
  • cognitive impairments
  • learning disabilities.

Meaningful titles

Forms must have meaningful titles so that someone using assistive technology can understand what form they're filling in. 

Form field labels

All form fields should have meaningful labels. This includes instructions on what information they need to enter. 

Writing in plain English

Content that is written in plain English will be more accessible.

View our content standards.

Styling

Bold and italics

You should avoid bold on more than a few words. Italics should not be used. 

Underline

You should remove any underlining because it can be confused with a link. 

Using the tab key

Allowing users to tab through a form means they can move between questions without using the cursor on a mouse.

Check tabbing is possible for your form and that questions are tabbed in a logical order.

Avoid CAPTCHA

CAPTCHA are often incompatible with assistive technology, are hard for people with low vision to read and are generally a pain for all users.

You should conduct user testing of online forms with a wide range of participants, including individuals with disabilities, to ensure accessibility requirements are met.

Find out more about accessibility regulations on the GOV.UK website and by using our accessibility toolkit.

Alternative text

All images need alternative text.

However, it can be difficult to add alternative text to complex images. This includes:

  • infographics
  • illustrations
  • charts
  • graphs. 

For images that are complex, you should:

  • add a short description in the alt text
  • add a longer description in the text of the document afterwards. 

The longer description should:

  • give a description in greater detail 
  • explain what the image is showing, so if the image were removed it would describe what it would show.

An image can also be marked as 'decorative'. You should only do this if it's not giving any information that someone using assistive technology would need to know.

Using colours

You should use a:

  • dark text colour on a pale background. This is what works best for users, but some users may prefer a pale font on a dark background
  • blank background to make it easier for the user to read a document.

You should not make text red or green.

Hyperlinks

You should use descriptive words for hyperlinks.

Never use non-descriptive words, such as 'click here'.

A good example is: Pay your Medway Council Tax online

A bad example is: www.medway.gov.uk/info/200131/council-tax/13/pay-your-council-tax

Another bad example is: Click here for more.