[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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