How Form Processing Works
You’ve created a form for your Website, and you’ve designed this form for viewers to either search a program by a query or to post information via E-mail. In this section, I’ll describe what happens when the developer adds the processing to your design, and why certain programs are better for form processing than others at this point in Website accessibility-land. I’ll also provide the reasons for unsuccessful controls (or why that form doesn’t work), and then I’ll talk a bit about why the W3C and the PAS-78 prefer that developers avoid JavaScript, especially when that scripting is used for form processing.
While most designers aren’t required to know the following information, it might help if you do understand the form delivery process. When you add the following knowledge to information about what scripting the developer uses to process forms, then you’ll know whether your form is truly accessible or even usable. In that regard, I’ll provide some fairly negative perspectives from W3C and from the PAS-78 on the use of JavaScript in any application. Then, I’ll offer some very simple solutions for designers and/or developers who want to continue to use JavaScript to process those forms.