[thelist] accessible way to indicate that a form field is required

Bill Moseley moseley at hank.org
Fri Nov 17 07:57:19 CST 2006


On Thu, Nov 16, 2006 at 02:24:14PM -0400, Sarah Adams wrote:
> I've read that using a different label colour or making a label bold to
> indicate that a form field is required leads to poor accessibility,
> because the different colour might not be obvious to someone who is
> colour blind and wouldn't be at all apparent to someone using a
> screenreader, and that making the label bold would also not be apparent
> using a screenreader.

I find when using bold, colors, or an asterisks to indicate a required
field that people still miss fields regardless of accessibility
issues.

I think of those indicators only as hints.  If a required field is
posted empty then I ask for that input again -- in a bit more verbose
way.  So, there's not really any real need to have the fields flagged
required for the application to work.

Of course, If you have a lot of non-required fields you probably
should ask yourself why you are even collecting that data in the first
place.


-- 
Bill Moseley
moseley at hank.org




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