Making Your HubSpot Website WCAG 2.1 Compliant
The following directions are part of a full step-by-step guide to making a HubSpot website WCAG 2.1 AA compliant. These recommendations are intended for websites managed on the HubSpot CMS but can be adapted for other content management systems. All suggestions in this guide are in conjunction with the accessiBe solution and require an active license. For more information on the accessiBe platform and pricing, you can learn more here.
Understanding
As a developer you have to ensure that any users are made aware of any errors that occur and that they can determine what it is. The error message should be as specific as possible. Just to keep in mind, error messages that popup upon form submissions is not enough for certain users to perceive that an error has occurred. Users with screen readers may not necessarily know there is an error until they come across the error indicator.
There are two different type of situations for this criteria.
- Information submitted by the user that are required
- Information submitted by the user that doesn't meet the required values.
Regarding situation 2 from above, if a user enters a value that doesn't meet the required values and the form automatically changes the value to fall within the range. The error message would still need to be provided to the user as required by this criteria. An error description letting the user know of the changed value would meet the 3.3.1 criteria as well as criteria 3.3.3 (Error Suggestion)
How accessiBe Helps
Unfortunately accessiBe doesn't help in any way by providing any programming of sorts to allow for description text or styling for error messages to the user. The developer would need to program and style this into the forms.
Solutions
There are few ways to ensure that your website remains compliant.
For forms with required fields:
- The developer needs to program an alert or message of any errors that is shown to the user upon form submission if there are any. In the example, shown to the right a label that states "Please complete this required field" in red is sufficient for this criteria.
- HubSpot on their forms program in the Aria role="alert" on the error label text.
- If form fields aren't filled, In addition to displaying the error, you should highlight the fields for easier scanning.
<ul role="alert">
<li>
<label class="hs-error-msg">Please complete this required field.</label>
</li>
</ul>
For form fields that require specific data or values:
- Again, the developer should provide context as specific as possible. In the example below "Please enter a phone number at least 7 numbers long and can contain only certain characters."
- HubSpot on their forms program in the Aria role="alert" on the error label text
For more information, please visit the official W3C article: Understanding
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