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RE: Adding a label to search box

for

From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Apr 13, 2006 2:50PM

On Thu, 13 Apr 2006, Jim Thatcher wrote:

> The title attribute should be used when there is inadequate on screen
> information to be grabbed by the label element.

No, in such cases the information should be enhanced.

> The 99% get the infomration
> not from the tooltip but some other visual indicators.

Do they, really?

> Typical examples include a text entry
> field followied by a "Search" button. The entry field needs title="search".

No, the entry field needs a label. (Possible exceptions include a search
page, i.e. a page that only exists to accommodate a search form and is
adequately described that way.)

It is inappropriate to expect that all people automatically recognize a
box followed by a button or an image as a search form. The title="search"
trick just helps you live with the illusion of accessibility. If there is
not enough room for a label, the page has apparently been designed
wrongly.

> Other examples are a phone number in three fields with one prompt, a zip
> code in two fields with one prompt

That's bad usability and bad accessibility, and if title="..." helps you
accept it, then title="..." is bad. For an input item like phone number or
zip code, you should use a single text input field. It should be up to the
processing script, not to the user, to divide the item into pieces if
needed.

> and radio buttons spanning from stongly
> agree to strongly disagree - their position indicating degrees between the
> two.

Now that's something where title attributes may really sound useful, but
is it just an illusion? I think the real problem is that radio buttons
aren't really a good way to set up such menus. Even when people see the
page, they have difficulties in remembering whether "agree" was on the
left or on the right, or to click on the small circle on the right row in
the right column. It's a matter of setting up an online form in a manner
that imitates a paper form, which is itself of questionable design.

Which one is easier (and faster): to select a radio button among, say,
five buttons by clicking on it (or by other means), or to type a digit
from 1 to 5? If the number of alternatives is larger (and it really should
- there should at least be a "no answer" option, and often there should be
finer granulation), the point becomes even more option.

> All of these are made accessible to someone who cannot see the screen
> by adding title attrbutes to the input elements;

Are you sure? You seem to think of the attribute as some kind of magic.

> they are accessible to
> someone who can see the screen (you say 99%) independent of the tooltip.

That's surely not true. Understanding the meaning of an input field that
has no label (which is what this is really about, right?) can be prevented
by many factors, cognitive and other. Many people just fail to see the
connection, even if they see components.

--
Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/