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From: Angela French
Date: Wed, Nov 05 2008 2:55PM
Subject: access form error messages
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Hello,

I am trying to find some online articles/data about the best way to
present error messages on a form. Does anyone know of such an online
resource?



Type of questions I have -



Is it better for the screen reader user to have all form validation
errors presented in a list on the page?

Or is it better to have each error message positioned with the form
element that failed validation? If so, where?



Thank you once again for your insight.







Angela French

Internet Specialist

State Board for Community & Technical Colleges

360-704-4316

http://www.checkoutacollege.com

http://www.sbctc.ctc.edu

From: Moore, Michael
Date: Wed, Nov 05 2008 3:05PM
Subject: Re: access form error messages
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An implementation method that we have used very successfully here is to
present the error message in an alert window then when the user
activates the ok button on the alert, focus is placed in the form field
needing requiring the change. This method is not as effective when there
are multiple errors in a single form. Fortunately this is not a
frequent occurrence.

Screen reader users have responded very favorably to this method and
expressed a preference to this method over others.

If you don't want to do the alert, it is important to place focus on the
page just before the error message so that it can be found, otherwise
the user may not realize that an error has occurred. When we have used
this method, our screen reader users have expressed a preference for the
errors to be listed at the top of the page, while screen magnifier users
have preferred notification at the location of the error. I believe that
this is because of the screen reader feature of being able to bring up a
list of form fields and quickly navigate to the trouble spot.

Mike

From: Mackenzie, Hamish
Date: Wed, Nov 05 2008 3:10PM
Subject: Re: access form error messages
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Hi Angela

this is a great article with some good tips esp for 2.0 related issues.

http://www.usability.com.au/resources/wcag2/

cheers

Hamish

From: ben morrison
Date: Thu, Nov 06 2008 3:25AM
Subject: Re: access form error messages
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On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 9:55 PM, Angela French < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I am trying to find some online articles/data about the best way to
> present error messages on a form. Does anyone know of such an online
> resource?


You could start here

http://juicystudio.com/article/dom-screen-readers.php

Ben
--
Ben Morrison

From: Travis Roth
Date: Thu, Nov 06 2008 2:25PM
Subject: Re: access form error messages
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And an interesting approach using ARIA:
http://www.marcozehe.de/2008/07/16/easy-aria-tip-3-aria-invalid-and-role-ale
rt/