Interesting indeed! Actually Tee I was going to pose the same question to the list following our discussions the other day :) I would like to get it right in GValidator so the core doesn't need to be modified by clients such as yourself.
I would like to see the results of reliable and publicly available research. Does anyone know of any? A quick Google search doesn't turn up anything overly exciting or empirical. Maybe we can do some testing of our own? So there are actually three interrelated things here: The first is the semantics of the <span class="required">*</span> element, then there is the usability and accessibility of it's use. In terms of usability and accessibility, my initial thoughts would be that given a sufficiently prominant key just before and in close proximity to the form, that sighted users should have no problem identifying which form elements need to be filled in. Users with screen readers however might have a little more trouble with this approach, so an approach similar to Russ's suggestion seems like the best approach. In terms of semantics, w3c says this about the strong element: "The strong element indicates higher importance for its contents than that of the surrounding content." I am unsure as to if it is more important that the label? But I can see a clear benefit for blind users. So what do we do? Cheers, Matt P.S. Although a while away, we do have these sorts of things to look forward to: * http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-html5-diff-20080122/#new-attributes * http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/ARIA2.html On 2/26/08, russ - maxdesign <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I can't speak for screen readers since I've never used one my self... > > But would there be any reason you couldn't do both and please the > > client and the screen reader(assuming it does help them)? a simple > > <strong>* First Name</strong> > > > > Just something I thought of :) > > > Interesting discussion. You could also use more meaningful flags like the > word "Required" instead of "*" and style this content in red/bold. This > means that everyone, including screen reader users understand the > implications much more clearly (as long as this information is included > inside the label element. > > For example: > > <label for="details-email"> > Email <span class="required">(Required)</span>: > </label> > > Or... > > <label for="details-email"> > Email <strong>(Required)</strong>: > </label> > > Then you could easily style it with something like: > > label strong (or "label span.required") > { > color: red; > font-weight: bold > text-transform: uppercase; > font-size: 85%; > } > > You can even position this "required" content after the <input> element > using absolute positioning as Derek Featherstone has proposed. > > HTH > > Russ > > > > > > > ******************************************************************* > 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] *******************************************************************
