Simon Willison’s Weblog

17th October 2025 - Link Blog

Should form labels be wrapped or separate? (via) James Edwards notes that wrapping a form input in a label event like this has a significant downside:

<label>Name <input type="text"></label>

It turns out both Dragon Naturally Speaking for Windows and Voice Control for macOS and iOS fail to understand this relationship!

You need to use the explicit <label for="element_id"> syntax to ensure those screen readers correctly understand the relationship between label and form field. You can still nest the input inside the label if you like:

<label for="idField">Name
  <input id="idField" type="text">
</label>