Re: use of placeholder as a label for an input

As an additional note note, Safari and Firefox both have text fields with placeholders but no visible labels, namely the address field when no URL has been entered. To persuade websites not to follow this reasonably common native idiom will require a good explanation.

 - Maciej

On Feb 18, 2013, at 10:28 PM, Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com> wrote:

> 
> <chair hat off>
> 
> I think there are two counterpoints to consider:
> - It's generally not a great idea to have MUST NOT criteria that are not machine checkable; whether placeholder is being used a "an alternative to label" depends on intent and interpretation of the contents.
> - This pattern appears to be pretty common and a MUST NOT seems
> 
> Also: You haven't explained why using a palceholder without any other label is insufficient. To make this concrete, consider the search box on <http://www.reddit.com>, which has a placeholder of "search reddit" and no other label. What concretely is the problem with this? There may be a reason this is bad, but you have not explained to the WG what it is.
> 
> Regards,
> Maciej
> 
> 
> On Feb 18, 2013, at 8:54 AM, 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
>> 
>