Glossary · Accessibility term
Autocomplete
Autocomplete is an HTML attribute naming what a form field collects. Name, email, tel, street-address, postal-code and 48 others. It lets browsers and password managers fill fields for people. It also lets assistive software show a familiar icon beside a field instead of a word, which works whatever language the label is written in. Rule 1.3.5 is the WCAG requirement behind it at Level AA, and it asks for something slightly different from what most people think. The purpose of the field has to be programmatically determinable. The attribute is the way you do that in HTML rather than the rule itself, so what fails is a field with no declared purpose, not a field where autofill has been switched off. The rule also only reaches fields collecting information about the user, so a delivery address for somebody else is outside it.
In practice
The attribute takes a defined token rather than free text. An email field marked email works. One marked your-email does nothing, and a wrong value is a documented failure rather than a harmless typo. WCAG's list runs to 53 purposes and it is closed, so if the thing your field collects is not on it, 1.3.5 does not reach that field. HTML's own autofill list is longer, which means a token can be perfectly valid HTML and do nothing at all for conformance.
Two extra tokens handle the case that breaks most checkout forms. A section token groups repeated fields, so two addresses on one page stay apart, and billing and shipping tokens disambiguate the same purpose used twice. Fields also inherit from the form that owns them where they carry nothing of their own.
Switching autofill off is a different thing from failing the rule, and the difference wins arguments. What fails 1.3.5 is a field with no declared purpose, so a form set to off with nothing else on it fails, and a form set to off whose fields each name what they collect does not. Do not read that as a way to have both. The browser's own algorithm reads the field's token first and only falls back to the form's on or off state when the field says nothing, so a field marked email is an email field whatever the form around it says. Setting off does not stop a password manager offering to fill a login either.
Why it matters
It is a Level AA requirement, and it arrived in WCAG 2.1, so an obligation written against 2.0 does not reach it at all. Check the version your contract names before you argue either way. The audience is not who most people picture. W3C leads with cognitive disabilities, naming memory, language and executive function, because the browser filling in your address means you do not have to hold it in your head. Typing difficulty is real and it comes second. The reason the criterion exists at all is the part almost nobody carries. A declared purpose is language-independent. So assistive software can put a familiar icon beside a field, a birthday cake or a telephone, and somebody who cannot read the label still knows what the field wants.
Declared purpose, not autofill
A checkout where every field is set to off, and nothing else, fails 1.3.5. Not because autofill is suppressed, but because no field says what it collects. Give each field its purpose token and the rule is met. Expect the browser to start offering to fill them too, because that token is what it was waiting for.
Where this shows up on the site
Related terms
- Form labelA form label is the visible text naming a field, tied to that field in code so software can tell which words belong to which box.
- Error identificationError identification is the Level A rule that when your form rejects something, the page names the field that failed and says in text what went wrong.
- Motor disabilityMotor disability covers anything that affects movement, strength, precision or sensation, from tremor and arthritis to multiple sclerosis, repetitive strain, paralysis and missing limbs.
- Cognitive disabilityCognitive disability is a broad group of conditions affecting how people take information in, hold on to it, and act on it.
Knowing the word is the easy part.
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