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Best way to display form errors and explanatory text

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From: Gerard Corboz
Date: Aug 9, 2005 11:09AM

Hi everyone

I'd like to ask some advice from webaim subscribers in regards to the
best way to display errors in an accessible HTML form and also how to
best handle explanatory text.

Many of the clients we deal with are government based and invariably
have a lot of explanatory and other legislative text on the form that
must be read. In many cases the text in question is not a label or
can't be associated with any particular field. Also, in many cases,
between fields there is some text which when tabbing through a form is
skipped. Any suggestions on how to handle this i.e. ensure that all
text is read and text between fields is also read through the process
of filling the form in.

I also wanted some advice on the best way to present errors in an
accessible way i.e. wait until the user submits the form before letting
them know they have committed an error or failed to complete a
question, use pop up menus, dynamically mark the field as incomplete
(inaccessible but just an example of one way to display form errors).

Regards

Gerard Corboz
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PERFORM Information Design Solutions
ph: 6214 0968
fax: 6214 0964
mobile: 0402 236 358
http://www.perform.net.au
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