[thelist] drop down date choosers and labels for accessibility

[Lee kowalkowski]

On 05/01/07, Austin Harris <austin at dotmail.co.uk> wrote:
> A bit of a conundrum here;
>
> I have a fieldset with various form elements in one of which being a set of three dropdowns for the date. The issue is how to provide the suitable labels for day, month and year AND for all three.

Isn't the label for "all three" just another label for the "day"
field?  I mean, if I choose either label, focus will go to the day
field won't it?  You can have two labels which do this, but I
personally wouldn't bother.

I don't think there's much wrong with nested fieldsets, but I wouldn't
bother having three drop-downs for a date.  It's a lot of HTML for
nothing.  As a user with a birthday quite late in the year and quite
late in the month, I detest having to switch between scrolling /
tabbing / typing shortcuts, when I could just as easily enter my
birthday into a single text-field.

I also dislike forms where dates are three text fields, especially
when they automatically set focus into the next field when you've
entered the maximum number of digits, because I invariably end up
having to backtrack because I press tab habitually.

One date, one text field, simple.  Enhance it with a calendar widget
if you like.

-- 
Lee