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Re: Error message summaries, alerts and focus

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From: glen walker
Date: Aug 7, 2023 7:39AM

To add on to what Patrick said, in addition to the uk.gov error summary
pattern, if you look at their error message pattern,
https://design-system.service.gov.uk/components/error-message/, and
validation pattern,
https://design-system.service.gov.uk/patterns/validation/, they don't say
anything about announcing the error message when it appears. That is, they
are not recommending the use of aria-live. So gov.uk is not doing both a
live region and moving the focus.

The error summary pattern also recommends putting the summary at the very
top of the page. I'm not sure that's always the best idea. If the main
purpose of your page is a form, then it makes sense. But if you have a lot
of information on your page and a form is only a small part of it, and that
form is further down the page, having the error summary at the top and
seemingly unrelated to the page might be confusing. On the other hand, if
you have some pages that put the summary at the top (in situations where it
makes sense) and other pages that put the summary near the form, then you
have an inconsistent pattern/location and that also might be confusing.

They also recommend pre-pending the page <title> with "error". That's an
interesting idea.

On Mon, Aug 7, 2023 at 4:58 AM Patrick H. Lauke < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
wrote:

>
> I would strongly suggest doing *either* live region announcement, *or*
> moving focus...not both.
>
> P
> --
> Patrick H. Lauke
>
>