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Re: advisability of putting instructions in a <select> menu

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From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Apr 27, 2005 2:32PM

Don Hinshaw wrote:

> One often sees the first item of a <select> menu being something like this --Select a Country--. While this may provide additional clues for a sighted person, it seems to me to add extra noise for a person hearing the page read. If the menu is labeled correctly shouldn't these be avoided?


To me, the problem is twofold. Yes, if you use a proper LABEL, having an option to serve as instruction is useless. However, if the selection is optional, you still need to provide a neutral default option, which in turn need *some* text in it to give the user enough clues as to its nature...

A tricky one...

P
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Patrick H. Lauke
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