Re: form controls: mandatory status

Hi,

there are a couple of approaches I would combine.

First idea is that it is important for everyone to be able to find things
that are mandatory, not just non-visual users. So hiding the information
doesn't seem a great idea.

Second is that screenreader users in particular try to reduce the number of
punctuation marks they have to listen to.

Third, they are one of the groups that commonly navigates just the active
elements of a page (such as links and labels).

So I would be inclined to use something like

  <p><label for="username">Username (required):</label>
  <input name="username" id="username" type="text" value="" size="30" accesskey="u" />
  </p>
I would be inclined to use CSS to add something like a backgrouond that
signified things which are required, but not to rely on it, since the
information that this field is required is an important part of the content
of the page.

Note that this is also required to conform to the WCAG checkpoint

  12.4 Associate labels explicitly with their controls. [Priority 2]
    For example, in HTML use LABEL and its "for" attribute.

I would argue that not having the information that something is required in
the label fails this requirement.

cheers

Charles

On Fri, 7 Dec 2001, Mirabella, Mathew J wrote:

  All.

  A query and item for discussion.  How to indicate the mandatory status of
  form controls to users in a visual and non-visual way.

[etc]

Received on Sunday, 9 December 2001 03:08:19 UTC