RE: Form labeling and user agent support

Jim Thatcher wrote:
"If you use the label element to label a checkbox or radio
button, when you tab to that control, the focus goes to the label.
Especially interesting when, as in a couple of Kelly's examples a few weeks
ago, the label is actually a link! It does create some visual confusion."

Reply:
I've never run into that problem of a label that's also a link, but I can
see how it would be confusing. It's not enough to make me abandon label, but
if the label were a link as well, I'd probably either rewrite the page to
put the link elsewhere, or use the title attribute on the link instead.

As for the focus being on the label, I've never found that to be a problem,
but I'm not a typical user. Has anyone done any usability testing on this?
It would be interesting to see the results.

Charles F. Munat
Seattle, Washington

Received on Friday, 4 May 2001 03:16:39 UTC