Form row

Notes for developers

Form rows are built to work within the full width of the page and restrict the form fields to a 6 columns at medium and large screen sizes. If the form is required to sit within a narrower area the modifier class m-form-row--full-width can be added, but the container must not be wider than 6 columns at medium and large screens.

Field labels should be displayed outside of the input not inside.

When disabling form elements, do not solely rely on the is-disabled class, but ensure that the disabled attribute is also set on the relevant form element or input. If an entire set of form elements is to be disabled, the is-disabled class and disabled attribute should be added directly to the fieldset instead, and not to each individual element within it. However if only one element from the set is disabled, then the class and attribute should be applied to that element only.

If the native form validation needs to be disabled set the novalidate attribute on the form.

Required fields

Ensure that a visually hidden message precedes any form that contains required fields. For example:

<p class="u-hidden--visually">All fields are mandatory unless otherwise stated</p>

Ensure that all required fields have aria-required attribute set on them or their group. For example:

<-- Basic input -->
<input type="..." id="..." name="..." value="..." aria-required="true" /><!-- checkbox, radio or input group -->
<fieldset class="m-form-row" aria-required="true">
	<legend class="a-label">...</legend>
	<div class="m-form-row__content">
		...
	</div>
</fieldset>

Do not use the HTML5 required attribute in conjunction with the aria-required attribute as it will cause screen readers to repeat that the field is required. The HTML5 required attribute is also not implemented uniformly across browsers and tends to invoke undesirable behaviour (marking empty fields are invalid from the outset).

Aria usage for errors and help text

To aid screen reader users in completing forms without error and also with understanding and fixing any errors that have occured, some additional aria attributes are now recommended to be applied across all form fields/rows.

All form row help, explanatory text, form row instructions and form row errors must have a unique id assigned to them and be appropriately linked to either the individual form input or the form row using aria-describedby. This ensures that the help text is read out immediately on focus of the form input/fieldset. When there is more that one item that requires referencing within the aria-describedby attribute the id values must be supplied in the form of a space separated list. For example if there is an error with id of 'err1' and help text with id of 'help1' the value for the aria-describedby attribute would be 'err1 help1'.

All inline form error messages should start with the hidden text 'Error: ' so that when read by out by a screen reader it is immediately clear that the text being read is an error message.

All erroring form fields (or fieldset if a group or radios/checkboxes) must have aria-invalid="true" set on them, ensuring that when a user focus' on an errored form field, the field will be announced as invalid, so the user is then aware that there in an issue that requires fixing.

When linking help or errors, or even adding aria-invalid to the markup careful consideration must be taken as to where it is most appropriate to apply the value. The following rules should be used to decide where the attribute(s) should be applied.

• Single form field - All attributes should be applied directly to that form field
• Group of form fields but only one in error or help text applies to only one - Apply the attribute(s) to the only field in error or where the help text applies
• Group of form field where all in error or the help text applies to all - Apply the attribute(s) to the groups surrounding fieldset (form row)

There may situations where more than one of these rules applies to the overall form row for example a date range where the instruction text applies to both fields so should be linked to the fieldset for the date range but one of the two fields is in error so the error should be linked to just that field not to the fieldset.

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Classes overview

The following table gives you a quick overview of the CSS classes that can be applied.