Re: use of placeholder as a label for an input

Hi all, thanks for your responses so far!

some backstory, I was motivated to pose this question to the working group
as I have observed people tweeting this post:
Don’t Put Labels Inside Text Boxes [1]

I also wrote about the placeholder attribute back in 2011 [2] and conducted
some testing (2012) [3]

FWIW I am not married to the idea of having a MUST NOT conformance on
placeholder, but wanted to ellicit thoughts from others on the subject. I
do think that addtional informative text would be useful.

[1]
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2013/02/dont-put-labels-inside-text-boxes-unless-youre-luke-w.php
[2]
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2011/02/html5-accessibility-chops-the-placeholder-attribute/
[3] http://www.html5accessibility.com/tests/placeholder-labelling.html

regards
SteveF

On 18 February 2013 16:54, Steve Faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com> wrote:

> The HTML spec currently states [1]:
>
> The placeholder attribute should not be used as an alternative to a label.
>
> should this be tighened up to MUST NOT?
>
>
> I believe there are cases where having a label associated using the label
> element may not be required, but can't think of any cases where the
> placholder attribute text suffices as the only label for an input.
>
> thoughts?
>
>
>
> [1]
> http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/forms.html#the-placeholder-attribute
> --
> with regards
>
> Steve Faulkner
>
> <http://www.paciellogroup.com/resources/wat-ie-about.html>