Re: ACTION-1349: Creation of aria-placeholder

Joanie,

I like what you have, but I also like the note from MDN
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/Input  as the MDN
note explicitly states not to use a placeholder instead of a label.

Note: Do not use the placeholder attribute instead of a <label> element.
Their purposes are different: the <label> attribute describes the role of
the form element; that is, it indicates what kind of information is
expected, the placeholder attribute is a hint about the format the content
should take. There are cases in which the placeholder attribute is never
displayed to the user, so the form must be understandable without it.


                                                              
                                                              
                    Regards,                     Fred         
                                                              
                   Fred Esch                                  
       Accessibility, Watson Innovations                      
    AARB Complex Visualization Working Group                  
                     Chair                                    
            W3C SVG A11y Task Force                           
                IBM Watson Group                              
                                                              
                                                              






From:	Joanmarie Diggs <jdiggs@igalia.com>
To:	W3C WAI Protocols & Formats <public-pfwg@w3.org>
Date:	01/15/2015 09:56 AM
Subject:	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