Radio buttons

<fieldset class="m-form-row">
	<legend class="a-label">...</legend>
	<div class="m-form-row__content">
		<ul class="m-form-row-group m-form-row-group--option-group [ Modifers ]">
			<li class="m-form-row-group-item m-form-row-group-item--full-width">
				<label class="a-radio" for="...">
					<input class="a-radio__input" type="radio" name="..." id="..." value="..." />
					<span class="a-radio__label"><span class="a-radio__label-inner">...</span></span>
					<span class="a-radio__ui"></span>
				</label>
			</li>
			...
		</ul>
	</div>
</fieldset>

<fieldset class="m-form-row">
	<legend class="a-label">...</legend>
	<div class="m-form-row__content">
		<ul class="m-form-row-group m-form-row-group--option-group m-form-row-group-items--1-small m-form-row-group-items--2-medium  m-form-row-group-items--3-large [ Modifers ]">
			<li class="m-form-row-group-item">
				<label class="a-radio" for="...">
					<input class="a-radio__input" type="radio" name="..." id="..." value="..." />
					<span class="a-radio__label"><span class="a-radio__label-inner">...</span></span>
					<span class="a-radio__ui"></span>
				</label>
			</li>
			...
		</ul>
	</div>
</fieldset>

Pictorial radio control

Inline icon images should be made up as a single sprite with a fixed size of 230px x 74px, with the two versions of the individual icons within it being no more than 85px x 74px and centred horizontally at 50px and 165px.

<fieldset class="m-form-row">
	<legend class="a-label">...</legend>
	<div class="m-form-row__content">
		<ul class="m-form-row-group m-form-row-group--option-group m-form-row-group--pictorial [ Modifier ]">
			<li class="m-form-row-group-item m-form-row-group-item--full-width">
				<label class="a-radio" for="...">
					<input class="a-radio__input" type="radio" name="..." id="..." value="..." />
					<span class="a-radio__label">
						<span class="a-radio__label-image">
							<img src="..." decoding="async" width="..." height="..." alt="" />
						</span>
						<span class="a-radio__label-inner">...</span>
					</span>
					<span class="a-radio__ui"></span>
				</label>
			</li>
			...
		</ul>
	</div>
</fieldset>

<fieldset class="m-form-row is-valid">
	<legend class="a-label">...</legend>
	<div class="m-form-row__content">
		<p class="m-form-row__validation-message">...</p>
		<ul class="m-form-row-group m-form-row-group--option-group [ Modifier ]">
			<li class="m-form-row-group-item m-form-row-group-item--full-width">
				<label class="a-radio" for="...">
					<input class="a-radio__input" type="radio" name="..." id="..." value="..." />
					<span class="a-radio__label"><span class="a-radio__label-inner">...</span></span>
					<span class="a-radio__ui"></span>
				</label>
			</li>
			...
		</ul>
	</div>
</fieldset>

<fieldset class="m-form-row is-error" aria-invalid="true" aria-describedby="...">
	<legend class="a-label">...</legend>
	<div class="m-form-row__content">
		<p class="m-form-row__error-message" id="..."><span class="u-hidden--visually">Error: </span>...</p>
		<ul class="m-form-row-group m-form-row-group--option-group [ Modifier ]">
			<li class="m-form-row-group-item m-form-row-group-item--full-width">
				<label class="a-radio" for="...">
					<input class="a-radio__input" type="radio" name="..." id="..." value="..." />
					<span class="a-radio__label"><span class="a-radio__label-inner">...</span></span>
					<span class="a-radio__ui"></span>
				</label>
			</li>
			...
		</ul>
	</div>
</fieldset>

<fieldset class="m-form-row is-disabled" disabled>
	<legend class="a-label">...</legend>
	<div class="m-form-row__content">
		<ul class="m-form-row-group m-form-row-group--option-group [ Modifier ]">
			<li class="m-form-row-group-item m-form-row-group-item--full-width">
				<label class="a-radio" for="...">
					<input class="a-radio__input" type="radio" name="..." id="..." value="..." />
					<span class="a-radio__label"><span class="a-radio__label-inner">...</span></span>
					<span class="a-radio__ui"></span>
				</label>
			</li>
			...
		</ul>
	</div>
</fieldset>

<fieldset class="m-form-row" aria-required="true">
	<legend class="a-label">...</legend>
	<div class="m-form-row__content">
		...
	</div>
</fieldset>

Notes for developers

A radio input should NEVER be used on its own, instead use a checkbox in this situation.

Radios must be contained within their own fieldset and the legend is the question for the group of radios.

Within a group of radios the name attribute must be common between all the radios, but the id remains unique to the page.

Always have one of the radios within the group set to checked when using switches. If the user has not changed the selected radio option, automatically set the first radio to checked.

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.

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.

Important messages

To help those using assistive technologies, make sure that success/error messages which need to be announced to users have their aria attributes updated to role="alert" and/or aria-live="assertive".

Using autocomplete

Users appreciate when websites save them time by automatically filling common fields like names, email addresses and other frequently used fields, plus it helps to reduce potential input errors, especially on virtual keyboards and small devices.

Browsers use many methods to determine which fields they can auto-populate based on previously specified data by the user, and you can give hints to the browser by providing both the name attribute and the autocomplete attribute on each input element.

Further details can be found in the developer notes on the form introduction page.

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Notes for testers

• In this instance the label for the radio option is the wording directly on the right of the radio option. Clicking / pressing the explanitory text for the group of radio options will not transfer focus to any of the radio options like it would for a text input.
• The label should be displayed to the right of the radio button and should activate the radio button when selected (as should the radio button itself).
• It should be really clear which label applies to which radio button by using background shading to group the label and the radio button together.

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Classes overview

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

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Keyboard operations

TAB

Tabbing to an group of radio should make the radio option clearly visually different so that the focus point on the page is obvious to the user.

SPACE

With focus on the radio option, pressing SPACE will select/de-select the radio option.

CURSOR KEYS

With focus on the radio option, pressing any CURSOR KEY will move the focus to the next/previous option within the radio option group.