Adding Extra Text to Radio Buttons

Screen reader programs can only read the text of a RadioButtonGroup control that has been authored into the Text column of the RadioButton table. If this text is an insufficient description of the radio buttons, overlapping Text controls can be added to provide extra descriptive text. These Text controls should overlap each other in the dialog box and have conditions set in the ControlCondition table so that only one Text control is shown at a time. The Text controls must not overlap the RadioButtonGroup control or other controls in the dialog because this makes the controls invisible to screen readers. When the user hovers the cursor over the Text control, the screen reader program reads the extra text.

In the following example the MySample dialog box has a RadioButtonGroup control named Colors with two choices for the value of the TheColor property. For each choice there is a Text control with a condition to hide or show, depending on the current choice selected for TheColor. An initial TheColor value is defined in the Property table. The Text controls have the extra descriptive text authored in the Text field of the RadioButton table. When a user hovers the cursor over the Text control in the dialog box, the screen reader can read the extra description of the current choice.

Dialog table

Dialog	HCentering	VCentering	Width	Height	Attributes	Title	Control_First	Control_Default	Control_Cancel
MySample	50	50	200	180	3	Accessible radio buttons	Colors	Next

 

Control table

Dialog_	Control	Type	X	Y	Width	Height	Attributes	Property	Text	Control_Next	Help
MySample	Colors	RadioButtonGroup	2	20	100	50	3	TheColor		Next
MySample	HowIsBlue	Text	20	80	150	15	2		It is like the sky on a clear day.
MySample	HowIsGreen	Text	20	80	150	15	2		It is like grass in the spring.

 

RadioButton table

Property	Order	Value	X	Y	Width	Height	Text	Help
TheColor	1	Blue	10	10	80	15	&Blue
TheColor	2	Green	10	30	80	15	&Green

 

Property table

Property	Value
TheColor	Blue

 

ControlCondition table

Dialog_	Control_	Action	Condition
MySample	HowIsBlue	Hide	TheColor <> "Blue"
MySample	HowIsBlue	Show	TheColor = "Blue"
MySample	HowIsGreen	Hide	TheColor <> "Green"
MySample	HowIsGreen	Show	TheColor = "Green"

 

For more information, see Accessibility.