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Re: Accessible Form Validation Errors

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From: Hall, Kevin (K.M.)
Date: Sep 8, 2004 3:26PM

David,

That sounds like something that would be very valuable. There are many points in the ongoing debate about best practices for handling form submission errors that could use thorough analysis. I hope that your coding tips will include details on how to create scripts that will help users fill out forms easily while degrading gracefully in browsers that do not support JavaScript.

I'm also very interested in your take on the placement of error messages and handling the problem of long forms with many errors. If the list of errors is listed above a long form what is a good balance for indicating errors at the appropriate form element without being too redundant? Should there be one or more links back to the error list from the form? I've seen a number of conflicting ideas on all of these and it would be great to see how you have addressed this tough issue.

Regards,
-Kevin Hall