The only purpose definition lists in forms serve is to provide some
visual formatting in cases where CSS is turned off. There was some
discussion on the technique at simplebits around a year or so ago, and
it is basically just substituting one set of tags for another (<dl>,
<dt>, <dl> in lieu of using <p>, <br />, and <div>. It's a technique
I'm not in favor of because definition lists have their own use, and
specific semantic meaning.
Personally, I think you should stick to using <fieldset><legends> and
<labels> -- tags specifically for use in forms. If you really want your
form to hang together when there are no style sheets then use br's at
the end of each line and hide them with css.
The jury's out on accesskeys. The major barriers to them are: 1) There
is no standard implementation across different sites 2) They are a
hidden attribute of a handful of tags and it's difficult to inform your
users about them 3) They may conflict with users own browser and/or
assistive technology keyboard shortcuts 4) Most assistive technologies
have their own form handling shortcuts. The other side of the coin - 1)
when used judiciously they provide handy shortcuts to fequently used
part of your web site 2) Not everybody who rely on keyboard navigation
use assistive technology.
If you do use accesskeys use a published guideline (e.g. in New Zealand
use e-govt web guidelines)
regards
Terrence Wood.
On 10 Jun 2005, at 11:52 AM, Peter Ottery wrote:
Hi Erwin,
there'd be other people on the list that could comment on the use of
access
keys etc i'm sure.
At a stretch I'd kinda consider some aspects of the visual
presentation
part of the broad spectrum that is "accessibility" though - or at least
usability.
i like this article that looks at the pros/cons of form layout, label
positioning & alignment:
http://www.lukew.com/resources/articles/web_forms.html
applying some of those presentation ideas would enhance the ability to
quickly grasp the different parts to the form (i'm getting some
mis-alignment with some of the form labels in the "enquiry details"
part of
teh form). browser cam results here:
http://www.browsercam.com/public.aspx?proj_id=168943
I havent read Joe's book. does he specifically recommened the use of
definition lists for layout? sounds like a decent enough idea. theres
potential to go without the dl though, and use the form tag itself and
the
label tags as the "hooks" to define styles & alignment.
theres a bunch of examples for form layout which youve probably
already
seen, i often go back to Cameron Adams' article and examples:
http://www.themaninblue.com/writing/perspective/2004/03/24/
but yeah - as mentioned, you're probably after specific feedback on
the use
of accesskeys etc - hopefully some of the gurus will chime in :)
cheers,
pete ottery
On 6/10/05, Erwin Heiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hi all,
I'm sorry for sending this againg but the link for the new form was
wrong,
that's what happens when you've been staring at a screen for too
long...
Iım pretty new to marking up forms so I decided to ³get it right²
right
from
the start.
Iıve recoded a contact form they are using on a website Iım working
on.
The old form (the one currently in use) is here:
http://www.pixelsandtext.be/tests/oldform.html
The new form is here:
http://www.pixelsandtext.be/tests/newform.html
Both forms validate to their respective DTD.
The old one is marked-up using tables, the new one uses a definition
list
and a few CSS-rules for the layout. I've read Joe Clarks book
"building
accessible websites" and applied most of the stuff in the "Forms"
chapter.
(Funny thing, even when adding all the CSS rules and the accessiblity
extra's to the HTML the file size is roughly the same as the old form)
Would some of the WSG accessibility gurus please have a look at this
form?
I'd welcome any comment and/or suggestions...
Thanks in advance,
Erwin Heiser
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