Improve accessibility of wp-signup.php by adding role attributes

[roytanck]

As currently implemented, the error messages on wp-signup.php do not supply a role attribute, as required by WCAG Success Criterion 4.1.3. When a user supplies incomplete information and submits the form, error messages are shown in red, but not marked as status messages for visually impaired users.

​https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/status-messages.html

This can be fixed by adding a role attribute to the element containing the message. I'll supply a patch that adds them.

[roytanck]

This patch also adds a role attribute to a status message in signup_another_blog() that I missed before.

[ryokuhi]

Hello @roytanck,
thanks for reporting this issue. It was discussed today during the weekly Accessibility Team's bug scrub.
The team agrees that the issue should be explored more deeply. It will first need some more testing, to understand if the page would benefit by the change.
In particular, since the form doesn't use AJAX, adding a role attribute to a field that isn't updated live probably won't do anything, but there other changes that might be made, such as adding an explicit link to the field related to the error.
Feel free to add more context, describing more in detail the problem you face with the current implementation and what changes with your patch.

[roytanck]

Hi @ryokuhi. Thank you for looking into this. My primary reason for reporting this was because it came up during an accessibility audit of one of my client's websites. My own experience with assistive technologies is very limited.

While testing the patch I submitted, we contacted the original tester, and they indicated that their initial finding may have been in error. Since the page is refreshed (change of context), adding role attributes is likely not necessary. The messages are part of the page's content, and therefore read by the screen reader software they used.

Feel free to close this ticket, or expand its scope as you see fit.

[ryokuhi]

Following reporter's feedback and after discussion during Accessibility Team's bugcrub, I'm closing this ticket.