Say what a control will do before it does it
Changing a dropdown does not usually reload the page, so when yours does, the reader has earned a heads-up. G13 is the technique of putting that information somewhere a person meets it before they touch the control. W3C counts it as sufficient for the on-input rule at Level A, so doing this meets that rule by itself. It also lists G13 as advisory for the labels-and-instructions rule, which means it helps there without being proof of conformance on its own. Where the words go matters more than how they are phrased. They have to come before the control in reading order, and tying them to the control programmatically is better again, because then they arrive with the control rather than merely near it. There is another route to the same rule. Stop the control changing context at all and put a button beside it.
How we find it in an audit
Any control that acts the moment its value changes gets flagged first. Language pickers, filter dropdowns, sort menus, survey answers that jump to the next question. Then a reviewer looks for the warning and asks a narrower question than whether it exists, which is whether a screen-reader user meets it before the control. Text sitting visually above the control but after it in the markup does not count. Where the instruction is tied on with aria-describedby, we check that it is announced on focus rather than only on request.
How affected users experience it
A screen-reader user arrows through a select to hear the options, because that is how a select gets read. If the page reloads on every arrow press, they never reach the third option, and each reload starts the page again from the top. That is not an annoyance, it is a loop with no exit but leaving. Warned in advance, the same person knows to open the list another way or to expect the jump. Sighted keyboard users fall into the identical trap and only recover faster because they can see what happened.
Passes vs. fails
Passes
Text before the control says that choosing a country reloads the page in that country's store. Better still, a Go button applies the choice.
Fails
A Country select navigates to a localized site the instant an option is highlighted, so the arrow keys become landmines.
Other ways to satisfy this rule
8 guides on this site are filed under 3.2.2 On Input. W3C lists this one as sufficient for that rule on its own. Implement it correctly, in a way your readers' software actually supports, and the rule is met.
- G80sufficientUse a submit button, not automatic submission
- H32sufficientGive every form a real submit button
- H84sufficientPair select menus with a real action button
- PDF15sufficientGive PDF forms an explicit submit button
- SCR19sufficientNever change context when a select changes
- F36failureDo not auto-submit when the last field changes
This guide is our interpretation of W3C technique G13: Describing what will happen before a change to a form control that causes a change of context to occur is made. W3C publishes its techniques as guidance rather than as the standard, and says so on every one of them. The success criterion is what conformance is measured against, and a technique is one documented way to meet it.