[thelist] accessible way to indicate that a form field is required
ben morrison
morrison.ben at gmail.com
Fri Nov 17 11:16:18 CST 2006
On 11/17/06, Max Schwanekamp <lists at neptunewebworks.com> wrote:
> Very interesting discussion. Another thought I've had (but not
> implemented) is using the title attribute on the input element.
> According to one article[0], and corroborated by another[1], this works
> for the more common screen readers, and would have no negative effect
> elsewhere. However I'm leaning toward putting in a span with text
> "required" and then putting it off-left (position: absolute; left:
> -9999em) with CSS, and styling the label with a bold font for visual
> users. Though this will probably require slightly more maintenance.
So sighted CSS users have to guess that bold means this field is required?
Personally I use an asterisk as this has evolved to the stage where
most people know what it is, with a heading before explaining that
asterisk means its required. Why not also make it bold, could also use
title as it will be read by a screenreader.
More importantly make sure that the actual validation tests work well
using JS[1] and Server side as without that its a pointless exercise.
ben
[1] http://juicystudio.com/article/dom-screen-readers.php
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