WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Placeholder

for

From: JP Jamous
Date: Mar 19, 2019 10:41PM

Placeholder is not WCAG 2 compliant at all. It is not listed in WCAG 2, because placeholders came out later. However, the way a placeholder functions fails other level AA success criteria of WCAG 2. (Smiles, I love it when developers have strong Egos. I have some of those at my company.)

I have worked at multiple corporates in the USA and I can assure you that placeholders are not compliant. In fact, we prefer labels using the FOR attribute even if HTML5 is being used.

1. People with cognitive disabilities can be impacted by place holders
2. Placeholders do not have a proper color contrast for low vision and color-blind users
3. Placeholders do not remain visible enough for low vision users to read them
4. Placeholders disappear automatically without the user being alerted beforehand, which fails level AA of WCAG 2


Do your developers want more evidence? I would also like to see where in WCAG 2.0, they found that placeholders are compliant. *smiles*

It is a typical pushback from the developers. My suggestion to you is to bring the UX designers to your side. Educate them so they do not use placeholders in their design and to refuse to have developers use it as it is not a good user experience anyways. That will be your best bet to enforce that upon them. They are using it because it is less coding and saves precious space on the page especially in a mobile UI.



--------------------
JP Jamous
Senior Digital Accessibility Engineer
E-Mail Me |Join My LinkedIn Network
--------------------


-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Mohith BP
Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2019 12:18 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Placeholder

Hi Eilana,

Using placeholder instead of visible label is wrong as the placeholder text disappears after user input the value.
For screen reader alone aria-label can be used however this will not help people with cognitive disabilities.
The only work around is using the floating label if the design / ux is stubbern on using placeholder.


Thanks & Regards,
Mohith B. P.

On 3/12/19, Eilana Benish < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> hello, my name is Eilana from Israel. Currently, I work with
> organizations required to make their websites accessible in Israel.
>
> We are working on developing a new website.
>
> We have a very serious disagreement about the place-holder as a method
> to label forms fields.
>
> I know that the popular screen reader reads the place holder. But this
> is mey not be accessible to users with cognitive disabilities.
>
> The development team thought otherwise and implemented the place holder.
> When I told them to change to standard labels – I got the answer that
> using the Placeholder is WCAG 2 compliant.
>
> I have also tried to find information on the W3C accessibility
> resources – Without success.
>
> So, is the place holder WCAG 2 compliant
>
> And what the WCAG 2 working group has to say about that topic?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> ובכבוד רב, אילנה בניש, מורשה נגישות שירות (2200)
>
> ליווי וניהול פרויקטים: נגישות ושמישות אינטרנט וטכנולוגיות מידע
>
> A.D.N: Accessible digital knowledge 2009 – 2019
>
> טלפון 050-7100367 דוא"ל <EMAIL REMOVED>
> אתר האינטרנט נגישות ושמישות אינטרנט וטכנולוגיות מידע ▐ IOS ▐ אנדרואיד
>
>