Teaching · Special Education

Make the mistakes on purpose, and listen.

Trigger each error with a screen reader running. The record shows which messages name the problem, which are heard, and which leave people hunting.

Test a formWhat you get
$12one-time · every device you sign in on
Buy · $12

Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the Special Education toolkit, $99 for 100 items.

The test run

One record per form and test run. The example is made up.

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What you get

Teaching · Special Education$12 · included with Classroom and Whole-school licenses

What you finish with
Error cases that pass and fail, by WCAG criterion, with the fixes to send to whoever builds the form.
Who it is for
Accessibility leads, web and communications staff, assistive technology and instructional technology staff.
Format
Browser test log. One saved record per test run; printed for the form builder or as a blank form; CSV of the cases; export and import a file.
Access
$12 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Also in the Special Education toolkit ($99) and the Teaching Suite pass ($199), and 1 more bundle. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The Special Education space in Caveat Teaching.
Support
Questions about an order, access or a correction: team@caveatacademic.com.
7-14-27Use MM/DD/YYYYsay what is wrong, and say it out loud
Drawn for this page. A red outline helps someone who can see it; a clear message that a screen reader announces helps everyone fix the mistake.

How to use it

  1. Start a record with a short form code.
  2. Turn on a screen reader and fill the form with the keyboard.
  3. Make one real mistake per field that checks input.
  4. Record whether the message is clear, helpful, heard and keeps your answers.
  5. Send the failures, fix, and run the test again.

Test a form

What good error handling does

The criteria

WCAG 3.3.1 requires that an input error be identified and described in text; 3.3.3 asks for a suggestion when one is known, such as the expected format; 4.1.3 requires status messages to be announced without moving focus, or the page can move focus to the errors.

Error summaries

When errors appear after submitting, a summary at the top of the form that receives focus and links to each field lets screen reader and keyboard users find every problem at once.

Keep the answers

Clearing the form after an error is not a WCAG failure on its own, but it makes people retype everything and is a common reason they give up.

Sources

  1. W3C. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2: 3.3.1 Error Identification, 3.3.3 Error Suggestion, 4.1.3 Status Messages.
  2. W3C Web Accessibility Initiative. Forms Tutorial: user notification and validating input.
  3. GOV.UK Design System. Error summary and error message components (open guidance).
  4. WebAIM. Usable and Accessible Form Validation and Error Recovery.

The example test run is made up. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.