Glossary
Form accessibility (WCAG)
Designing forms usable by people with disabilities, per WCAG.
Form accessibility means people using keyboards, screen readers, magnification, voice control or with motor and cognitive differences can complete your form independently. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the reference standard, with level AA the common legal and procurement bar.
The fundamentals are concrete: every field has a programmatically associated visible label; errors are announced to assistive technology and identify the field and how to fix it; the form is fully operable by keyboard with a visible focus indicator; and meaning is never carried by colour alone. Required status must be conveyed in text or markup, not just a red asterisk's colour.
Accessibility overlaps with general quality. A honeypot is preferable to a CAPTCHA partly because CAPTCHAs exclude users; clear field validation messages help everyone; and a matrix question that reflows on mobile is both more accessible and more usable. The end-to-end specifics are covered in the guide "Accessible forms (WCAG) end to end".