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Re: Form submission on mobile devices

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From: Sarah Ward
Date: Feb 14, 2014 6:16AM

Hi Joe,

When I tested in on Safari iOS it did submit :( One of my team also tested on a version of android, so it's interesting that we are getting different results.

Thanks,
Sarah



On Wednesday, 12 February 2014, 14:38, Joe Chidzik < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> > However, we are getting pushback from the business that they do not
> > want a Submit button and they want to keep the UI clean and simple. If
> > anyone has experience or can direct me to a resource that explains why
> > this is a poor experience I would really appreciate it. Do low vision
> > users assume to press Return/Enter key if they can't find a submit
> > button on the view? Unfortunately I am unable to do user testing for
> > this, and without concrete evidence it is getting increasingly difficult to push for
> a change in the design.
>
> An immediate concern would be how screenreader users would expect to submit
> the form. A submit button typically demarks the end of the form for screenreader
> users, and will act as a prompt to then submit the form. Without a submit button,
> this prompt is not present, and will likely cause difficulties. As you also point out,
> without a text input field on the form, the onscreen keyboard will not be displayed
> anyway, and no-one will be able to submit the form.
>
> Joe

Quick followup:

As a test, I created a simple form with two text input fields, and no submit button. Even with the focus in a text field, pressing Go on the onscreen keyboard had no effect - the form was not submitted. I repeated the test having added a submit button onto the page, and pressing go on the onscreen keyboard this worked to submit the form. Removing the submit button caused the form to fail once again.

Even with the a submit button present in the code, but hidden via display: none, the form would not submit.

I tested this on:
-Safari, iOS 7 on an iPhone 4s.
-Chrome, Android 4.4.2, Nexus 4

Both had same results.


Joe