[Fwd: Re: WCAG 1.0 checkpoint 10.4]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: WCAG 1.0 checkpoint 10.4
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2005 08:49:49 -0400
From: David Poehlman <david.poehlman@handsontechnologeyes.com>
To: Patrick H. Lauke <redux@splintered.co.uk>
References: <f00390ea05071204247c7da19b@mail.gmail.com> 
<42D3BA83.40809@splintered.co.uk>

patric, if the form is being brailled, you need something to note
that a blank is there to be filled in.  The braille form will not be
filled in but used as a representation thus it needs not only a place
holder, but the length of the field to be filled in.  Remember fill
in the blank? the blank was a blank block.  In braille, it was noted
with a dashed line running the length of the field.

There are still many people out there including myself who have no
idea how many chars a field can take unless there is place holder
info in the form.  I saw a form recently that wanted the state.  They
put xx in the box to note they wanted the state abbreviation.  Now,
the label could have been clear or they could have used a dropdown,
but their solution was well worth the bit of trouble it took me to
empty the form.

-- 
Jonnie Apple Seed
With His:
Hands-On Technolog(eye)s


On Jul 12, 2005, at 8:41 AM, Patrick H. Lauke wrote:


Gautier Barrere wrote:


> "Until user agents handle empty controls correctly,
> include default, place-holding characters in edit boxes and text
> areas."
>

I've asked quite a few times on the list here, but to no avail. From
my own testing, I'd say that the time has come to ditch this
guideline. I am not aware of any user agent (with/without assistive
technology running on top of it) in use today that can't handle empty
form elements. If memory serves me right, this guideline was created
because Netscape 2 in combination with Outspoken on Mac had some
issues and silently omitted these form elements...

Also spoke to Shawn Lawton Henry http://www.w3.org/People/Shawn/
quite a while ago, and she conceded that I may not be wrong with my
assumption that it's time to ditch this.

Placeholder text can cause more problems (or at least annoyances)
than it (supposedly) solves.


> But how can I do if I use radio ou check button ? (for instance for
> the gender choice, between, "man and woman")
>

Placeholder text does not apply to radio or check buttons. As the
guideline says: edit boxes (i.e. input type="text" and textareas).


> I should do a choice by default, for instance "man" but it won't
> ensure relevance of the data gathered (Indeed, I'm sure that a lot of
> women won't change this, even if they will respond to my form).
>

You're getting confused between placeholder text and having a default
choice already set. There is no guideline covering the latter.

-- 
Patrick H. Lauke
__________________________________________________________
re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively
[latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.]
www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.uk
http://redux.deviantart.com
__________________________________________________________
Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Force
http://webstandards.org/
__________________________________________________________










-- 
Patrick H. Lauke
__________________________________________________________
re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively
[latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.]
www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.uk
http://redux.deviantart.com
__________________________________________________________
Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Force
http://webstandards.org/
__________________________________________________________

Received on Tuesday, 12 July 2005 13:54:02 UTC