Gravity Forms Commitment to Accessibility

Our Motivation

“Everyone should be able to use the web and web forms, regardless of device or ability.”

We want everyone to be able to use our forms, and we want site owners to be able to comply with government laws on accessibility, regardless of which country they live in or where they visit a website from. This accessibility statement is to let you know the goals we aim for, the work we have done, and what we are planning to do around accessibility for our Gravity Forms products.

Goals we aim for and work on

We aim for our forms to comply to WCAG 2.1 AA: the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, version 2.1, level AA.

This is the global standard, and is accepted as the standard for regulation in many countries around the world. For example: WCAG 2.1 AA complies to section 508 (US), the European Accessibility Act and the Equality Act 2010 (UK). For more details about the laws in your own country please check the W3C website Web Accessibility Laws & Policies.

How accessible are the forms at the moment?

How accessible your forms are, depends on how you use the plugin, which options you use and how you select the settings. For example, for every form input you should have a visible label.

No form builder plugin can guarantee compliance to WCAG without having complete control over how the form is implemented.

While we work hard to give site owners and content managers the tools and documentation to create accessible forms, the most important component to accessibility is the site owner!

The site owner is always responsible for the accessibility of the forms on a website.

We will endeavor to provide you forms that give you as much assistance as possible, but in the end, like any content on your website, you, the site owner, are where the buck stops for your visitors and customers.

We also try to continuously update and extend our documentation, to explain what is important and needed.

Where can I find more information on accessible forms?

Here is a list of solid resources on building accessible forms:

Accessibility and your WordPress theme

The accessibility of Gravity Forms also depends on the WordPress theme you are using. A WordPress theme can override the way the form looks and functions. For example: the color contrast between text and background and the way checkboxes and radio buttons work, can be influenced by custom CSS.

Check your theme documentation, or contact the theme developer, to confirm the safeguards and roadmap they are using to help guarantee the accessibility of the forms on your site.

The WordPress accessibility and ATAG statement describes how accessible WordPress itself is, as an open source software project.

Beginning The Improvement Process

To start our process of improved accessibility, we engaged the digital agency of Level Level in order to get an initial view of what was expected, and the areas that most desired improvement. They partnered us with their senior accessibility consultant Rian Rietveld, who has an excellent reputation in this space.

Rian completed an initial document for discussion around the front-end of our Gravity Forms core plugin in early 2019, taking us through a list of suggested actions and helping us form them into a roadmap. Additionally she provided training for our design and product teams. Her analysis continues, and the process of analysis and feedback is ongoing.

Improving accessibility was one of the focus points of Gravity Forms version 2.4 and 2.5. Non visible changes were made in version 2.4, like:

  • Screen reader feedback on dynamic changes.
  • Improved semantics of the form HTML.
  • Improved color contrast.

And version 2.5 included significant changes to markup, like:

  • All fields are now wrapped with either a <div> or a <fieldset>. We no longer wrap fields in <li>.
  • All multi-input fields (such as Address, Name, Checkboxes, etc) are now wrapped in a <fieldset> (previously were <div>) for improved accessibility.
  • Field labels inside a <fieldset> use a <legend> (previously we used an unconnected <label>).
  • Refactored the List field for improved accessibility.
  • Add and Remove icons are now <button>’s (previously were <a>’s).
  • All <table> tags have been replaced with <div>’s.

Our Roadmap

We know accessibility is not met with one delivery. We are committed to ongoing improvements, as well as periodic accessibility audits to ensure our forms continue to be the most accessible in the ecosystem.

Our current roadmap has put emphasis on two main steps of incorporating accessibility improvements:

Improving the accessibility of the front end forms is an ongoing process. But with the major change in 2.5 we set the groundwork to implement future improvements in an easier way.

User manual and documentation

We want to help you make your forms accessible. Our documentation will continually be extended and updated to teach you how best to use Gravity Forms to create accessible forms for your website.

What to do if you find an accessibility issue

Did you find an accessibility issue using a form, made with the Gravity Forms plugin? Please contact us, and we’ll be happy to help you and try to solve the issue.

If you have a Gravity Forms license, you can login and report the issue using customer support form.
Otherwise you can contact us using our contact form.

If you had your website audited for accessibility guidelines and there were issues reported with a form made with Gravity Forms, please let us know, so we can help you and see if the issues can be addressed by you or need changes from our side.