) I 'met' a delightful new-to-me webdev in the UK (added her blog to my weekly reading list) all because of her post Labels in input fields aren’t such a good idea, from a year and a half ago.If you have forms this is a must read. Both for the specific details and for the usability mindset shown.
There’s something that’s been bothering me lately. It seems to be some kind of form interface trend where the labels for text inputs are placed inside the fields themselves.
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Admittedly, this makes an interface slicker.
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But what you’re gaining in a clean look, you’re completely losing through a total lack of usability.
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..this sense of panic that I’m entering it wrong and there’s no way to check that I’m doing it right. I have to click back outside the input box, so it no longer has focus, to check what the label was again.
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HTML5 has a fantastic new form input attribute for adding placeholder information into the input boxes so that you can easily give your users cues without the need for Javascript or CSS hacks
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I’m concerned that people will misuse or misunderstand the placeholder attribute as a way to replace form labels
But it’s not the same thing!
A label tells you what a form input requires, a placeholder gives you an example of the input required.
And the comments are worth a quick read as well.
Nice to have 'met' you, Laura Kalbag.
