Hi , >although I think that placing the label text before the field instead of above makes it even more accessible for the avarage visitor, especcially if the form tends to be long
All the research I have read claims labels being above the field results in the greatest useability. http://www.lukew.com/resources/articles/WebForms_LukeW.pdf I have had good success using the standard <fieldset> and <label> tags to mark up my forms, the only drawback to this method is the increased vertical height, but again useability research has shown that if your page has the content/function your users are after scrolliong is not a issue. (and you should be cutting your forms down to the bare minimum anyway.) A short example: http://www.griffith.edu.au/cgi-bin/feedbackform.cgi Something else worth mentioning, i did have some issues with syling an array of radio or checkboxes, i.e you have a question, plus you have to label that particular input (with a prefilled answer), but this was neatly solved with a nested fieldset. example: http://www.griffith.edu.au/web-publishing/content-modules/radio-buttons.html example: http://www.griffith.edu.au/web-publishing/content-modules/checkboxes.html Kind Regards, Kane Tapping Web Standards Developer Web and Content Management Services Griffith University. 4111. Australia. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: +61 (0)7 3735 7630 Sander Aarts <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 25/05/2007 10:22 AM Please respond to [email protected] To [email protected] cc Subject Re: [WSG] dl v table for form layout Hello Mike, Mike at Green-Beast.com schreef: If one tries hard enough, it seems anything can be considered a list of sorts. That might be true, but I hope you will agree that it's easier to consider a form being a list than a whole page. A form is a list of controls and their related inputs, but we wouldn't use a list to organize form controls, so we'd use fieldsets/legends, labels and inputs. Using the Q&A scenario which you might use to try and justify the use of a DL to organize a form, let's swap out the elements with their appropriate ones (which need to be used anyway). DL = Fieldset ?? = Legend DT = Label (the "Q") DD = Input (the "A") I didn't say I use <dl>s instead of <fieldset>s. I use them too if needed, although I'm not a big fan of <legend> (from a layout point of view this must be the most annoying element). Btw, in some cases the <label> is not the 'Q' but the 'A', as with checkboxes and radio buttons. And I think that originally <legend>s were meant to replace the 'Q'-<label> in these cases. It seems to me the form has everything we need to properly organize it. Once it's made we can add then a few styles and layout rules with CSS to make it look good. But in most cases not as good as the designer whose designs I'll have to translate into templates wants it. Sometimes you just have not enough hooks for CSS or you'll have to add extra elements in order to make clear snippets that can be reused within the system of the site. And even though we would all like to create websites that use no more than the necessary semantic elements, I'm sure you're familiar with this problem if you work with designs that are not yours or for customers that want don't want an archaic form layout. And if you do need another element then I'd say a <dl> comes very close to the semantic structure of a form because of this Q&A thing. See a real (somewhat styled) example: http://green-beast.com/gbcf/ (Demo Form) Using this is satifies all of the needs of users and spec requirements. No definition list necessary or needed. Your demo form is a wonderful example of a web standards compliant and accessible form (although I think that placing the label text before the field instead of above makes it even more accessible for the avarage visitor, especcially if the form tends to be long), but it also has this basic layout. Which is fine, but not always what is requested. <!-- slightly off topic: if I may make a suggestion concerning usability: why not have JavaScript, if supported, answer and hide the anti-spam question? That way a lot of people won't be bothered with it :-) --> I certainly wasn't trying to make a case for using a list, any list, for a form. I know and you are forgiven ;-) Cheers. Sander ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ******************************************************************* ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *******************************************************************
