“An HTML form is a section of a document containing normal content, markup, SPECIAL ELEMENTS CALLED CONTROLS (checkboxes, radio buttons, menus, etc.)
…

Adding structure to forms: the FIELDSET and LEGEND elements

The FIELDSET element allows authors to group thematically related CONTROLS and LABELS. Grouping controls makes it easier for users to understand their purpose while simultaneously facilitating tabbing navigation for visual user agents and speech navigation for speech-oriented user agents. The proper use of this element makes documents more accessible.

The LEGEND element allows authors to assign a caption to a FIELDSET. The legend improves accessibility when the FIELDSET is rendered non-visually.”

Pretty damn clear to me – they’re for FORM elements ONLY.

“build for purpose… use the material for the purpose it was intended”

1) there are lots of people that rely on screen readers, using fieldset/legend this way is going to be REALLY frustrating for them… and before anyone comes back with ‘but this is from a design perspective’ what you mean is a ‘VISUAL’ design perspective – someone using a screen reader will tell you that ‘your design’ sucks as they ‘aurally experience’ your design. (Spring’ed: be careful throwing the term ‘design nazi’ around I think the visually impaired have much greater claim on that term for your approach which essentially says [in best German accent] “you are inferior as you are unable to see our master design, we shall make you suffer bad UX”)

2) If your doing this commercially they be aware that making accessible websites is law and at some point somebody’s going to come along and start dishing out fines for not complying – just like not having a ramp instead as well as stairs. At that point you’re going to look pretty silly as a professional.

If either of these doesn’t convince you then hopefully the following will.

Back in the good ‘ol days we had to use tables for layout – tables weren’t intended for this, but we didn’t have a proper set of tools for the job and browsers couldn’t agree how to implement them.

Now if you want to go down the route of “this isn’t what the standards say and it wasn’t meant to do this, but hell I can, so I will” then you’re thinking along the lines that Microsoft and Netscape did during the Browser wars – where each decided what tags they wanted to support and how to support them.

Standards are our friends – they’ve helped us come a long way from bloated browser sniffers, alternate versions of sites for different browsers, horrible hacks, etc.

Sneer in the face of them and you will have nobody to blame when Microsoft turns back around and says ‘to hell with this, we’ll just do what we want then’ (and if you think there’s no chance of that then you only have to look at Outlook 2003 which can only use Word’s hideous HTML rendering engine, essentially making CSS impossible and setting html email design back about 5 years)

If you’re still not convinced then look up and get a copy of Jeffery Zeldman’s “Designing With Web Standards” – he’s more convincing than me to be fair.

Old saying says “Keep it simple”.. or we just say “Keep IT simple”… and keep in mind “Build for purpose!”

The only purpose for the fieldset/legend tags is to define “somthing” inside it. So if its a formfield, text, an image etc. it does not “harm” the validity of the code.

As long as you can; Somethinglorem ipsum

There are NO arguments that say you can NOT;
As long as you can; Somethinglorem ipsum

I use fieldset/legend to just as many none form stuff as for forms. And I will continue to…

/T-S
Communications & Control Systems Specialist

If I can see how the *correct* way of putting this type of form together I will learn from it and be able to move on in the future making forms in this way. However things that seemed easy in tables are having me pull my hair out now.

What is next? Using read-only form fields because they make a ‘cool looking box’?

On the other hand Andy deserves some credit for the article for pointing out the visuals effect of it. Only it should have been geared towards ‘form design’ more so than ‘layout design’.
All the best!