When is Cardinality Reported for Groups of Checkboxes and Radio Buttons

The examples on this page should be tested with a variety of screen readers to determine when (and how) the cardinality of the groups of checkboxes or radio buttons is reported.

Support Summary:

• It is the shared value of the radio button's name attribute that lends cardinality to radio button groups.
• There is wide support on desktop platforms for both the role=group + aria-labelledby and the fieldset + legend grouping techniques.
• Because wrapping checkboxes or radio buttons in list items either does not add screen reader-exposed semantics or adds extra (likely undesirable) verbosity, the technique ought to be avoided.

Fieldset and Legend Grouping of Checkboxes, No List

Fieldset and Legend Grouping of Radio Buttons, No List

Fieldset and Legend Grouping of Checkboxes, Inputs in List

Fieldset and Legend Grouping of Checkboxes, Inputs in List (List Not Visible)

Fieldset and Legend Grouping of Checkboxes, Inputs in List (List Not Visible But with ARIA Shimmed-in List Semantics)

Shimmed-in role="list" and role="listitem to re-establish list semantics for AT/browsers that lose the semantics when the list style is set to "none."

Fieldset and Legend Grouping of Radio Buttons, Inputs in List

Grouping of Checkboxes Using Role Group, No List

Grouping of Radio Buttons Using Role Group, No List

Fieldset of Checkboxes Using Role Group, Inputs in List

Fieldset of Checkboxes Using Role Group, Using aria-posinset and aria-setsize to Attempt to Assert Cardinality

Using aria-posinset and aria-setsize on the inputs to try to force some cardinality. This technique will throw an axe error, since neither ARIA attribute is allowed on an input and are not considered “global” ARIA attributes.

Fieldset of Radio Buttons Using Role Group, Inputs in List

Do Radio Buttons Just Get Cardinality From the Name Attribute?