WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Appropriate to use textarea to display text?

for

From: Randy Pearson
Date: Apr 30, 2005 3:25PM

>Patrick H. Lauke wrote:


>> To play devil's advocate for a second: once you make the TEXTAREA
>> read-only, though, it becomes a bit ambiguous whether or not it's
>> appropriate. If nothing else, having the T&C this way ensures
>> that even when tabbing from one form widget to the next (forms
>> mode or similar), the user is presented with the information.
>> I'd almost argue that this solution is more usable than an
>> equivalent CSS-driven scroll box, as the
>> user is not required to jump out forms mode.


Interesting points.

But some other possible arguments against the TEXTAREA:

a) Readonly elements are still successful. So when clicking
the "I Agree" button, the whole T&C text would be posted
back to the server.

b) Using the DIV approach allows the text to be formatted.

c) Printing works better using the DIV approach, as the entire
T&C can be printed, which is not the case with a TEXTAREA.
(You would remove any DIV size settings for print media.)

-- Randy