Re: Nielsen's Latest Alertbox & a personal protest

Hi,

Jakob Nielsen is right but so are Tina and Carl.

Jakob uses the word label in its generic normal sense. Almost nobody has ever heard about the label element not even most professional web designers.

The label element only exists in the universe of extreme accessibility.

Jakob simply says: if you use a search field it is enough that the button says Search. You don't need a heading or a paragraph telling users that this is a Search field.

For good accessibility we should use the label element. But this will add text to the search field besides the Search already in the button.

Here we have a conflict between usability and accessibility. And in this case usability should win.

We want a search field, so common on so many pages, to be as simple and clean as possible. The button with the name Search is more than enough thank you.

Some users need more. Their user agents should be able to give them what is needed by using the word Search in the button.

This only applies to the search box so common on so many pages.

In most other cases, we should always use the label element together with form elements.

"Accessibility becomes counterproductive and the greatest single obstacle to a more accessible Internet, if it insists on practices nobody will listen to".

I said that.

Cheers,

Jesper Tverskov
www.SmacktTheMouse.com


-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org] På vegne af tina@greytower.net
Sendt: 11. november 2003 11:58
Til: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Emne: Re: Nielsen's Latest Alertbox & a personal protest

Received on Tuesday, 11 November 2003 07:26:15 UTC