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Re: Accessible PDF Forms - field labels

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From: Olaf Drümmer
Date: Jul 8, 2013 10:57AM

Hi Bevi,

regarding field labels I tend to recommend the following:

- for each form field and group of form fields there must be a clear visible label
- I prefer them to be before the fillable field(s), i.e. to the left of a field (in a left to right writing system, for Arabic and Hebrew it might have to be to the right), or above the field(s)

- in some cases fields need to be explained; it is common practice - especially in paper based forms - to put such information below the field to be filled, or on a separate page or even a separate document; for my taste, any such explanation should be positioned before the field(s) to be filled, unless it is so long that it would destroy the visual structure of the form; in that case it should be provided on a separate page/in an appendix, ideally with forward and backward clickable links, to make jumping around between field and explanation easier (for everyone, not just people with disabilities)

- in addition there should be an internal, human readable name of the field, usually referred to as tool tip or QuickInfo in form creation user interfaces
- the internal name should be as short as possible and as long as necessary; it should focus on identifying the field at hand, and - at least for my taste - should usually not begin to explain the field; if a user encounters the internal name first and is not sure how to fill the field, the user should consult the content around the field.

- it will always be important that the form is organised in a consistent fashion (I will never forget the green forms US immigration let me fill out when entering the USA via the Visa Waiver program in pre-ESTA times - on the front it followed one presentation structure, on the back a different presentation structure; I filled at least a third of those forms out incorrectly on the fifty or so trans-atlantic trips I did in the last decade, putting information in the wrong fields, and finding out at the bottom of the page that I was running out of fillable areas, and had skipped the first fillable area at the top...

- in general I am not a friend of information that is visible only some of the time; I have seen forms where several paragraphs of explanatory text pop up in a tool tip or in a separate dialog box. This more often than not creates rather than solves problems. If some information is important to at least some users, put it on the pages of the document, and make it easy to recognise it / locate it / find it / navigate to it (and back).


Well organised agencies and companies would have guidelines and templates for this… (and ideally not just for the corporate design aspects of forms).


This is just my 2 cents,

Olaf


On 8 Jul 2013, at 17:30, Chagnon | PubCom < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> 5. Where visible field labels should appear, before, after, above, left,
> right of the field.
>