WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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Re: Accessibility and web applications

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From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Apr 2, 2014 12:53PM

Don,

From the original description, it sounds like the user interface fails to inform all users that the data will be lossed if the user navigates to another part of the user interface.

Todd,

I definitely think it would be helpful to warn users they would lose data by navigating to other pages, but I see this as a usability issue. I actually like Patrick's idea the best. It is possible for a user to miss a message on the page, but it would be difficult for the user to miss a dialog. While Patrick's method requires using something like javascript, I don't think that should present a problem unless your site design is based on a requirement that features should work without javascript.

Another question you might want to ask yourself is how much of a usability issue is this? Why would users navigate away from the form? Would those reasons involve returning to the form to complete it? If some users are finding they need to navigate to other parts of the site in order to be able to complete the form, then that is probably a pretty important usability issue to solve. And a better way to solve that kind of problem might be to include the information they need on the page. If a user navigates away from the form because they lose interest or just decide to locate other information on the site, that would be a different kind of usability problem--and including instructions that the user will lose their data on the page probably won't do much to resolve the problem.