Patrick H. Lauke wrote:
Bert Doorn wrote:
Is it really necessary for accessibility to "include default
place-holding characters in edit boxes and text areas" per WCAG 1.0
Checkpoint 10.4? Is that an obsolete guideline?
Personally, I'd say it is an obsolete guideline indeed. However, I
recently heard on the WAI IG list that some braille software requires
at least a space as a placeholder, otherwise it just does not expose
inputs to the user. I'd argue that this is a fault of the
software...but it's something that might have to be taken into
consideration.
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2005JulSep/0034.html
Why can't the braille software detect an empty form element and inform
the user it requires data? Is this an authoring tool problem or a
problem with the way standards are prescribed?
I agree with this from two perspectives
1) that to address this to the nth degree, where it is actually a
problem with either the way the software functions or is a bug. How
much of our time do we spend addressing bugs in user agents? Isn't so
much of the information on lists like this sharing insights into how to
address bugs in user agents. I think this is what turns non standards
developers off standards development. Admittedly tag soup has it's own
set of bugs, but being a standards developer means, to me, you have to
be prepared to work with lots of buggy software, far more than should
reasonable be expected.
2) often I feel place holders are not good usability, because the forms
themselves should be designed well enough to represent the data sets
required. I think it can add to all sorts of cognitive problems in
complex screens.
Regards
Geoff Deering
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