ACTION-1349: Creation of aria-placeholder

Hi all.

Proposed text for aria-placeholder follows. It's lifted pretty much
verbatim from the HTML5 spec. Thoughts?

<proposal>
Represents a short hint (a word or short phrase) intended to aid the
user with data entry when the control has no value. A hint could be a
sample value or a brief description of the expected format.

Authors SHOULD present this hint to the user by displaying the text
inside a blank unfocused control.

Note: As is the case with the related HTML placeholder attribute, use of
placeholder text as a replacement for a displayed label can reduce the
accessibility and usability of the control for a range of users
including older users and users with cognitive, mobility, fine motor
skill or vision impairments. While the hint given by the control's label
is shown at all times, the short hint given in the placeholder attribute
is only shown before the user enters a value. Furthermore, placeholder
text may be mistaken for a pre-filled value, and as commonly implemented
the default color of the placeholder text provides insufficient contrast
and the lack of a separate visible label reduces the size of the hit
region available for setting focus on the control.
</proposal>

--joanie

Received on Thursday, 15 January 2015 14:56:00 UTC