Figure 3-5. This typical contact form uses an asterisk and red text to indicate which fields
are required. In addition, it also explains what the asterisk means.
ACCESSIBILITY
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JavaScript enhancements should be nonintrusive. Adding functionality to a form can
greatly enhance usability, but only if the JavaScript is nonintrusive, meaning that the form
works equally well when JavaScript is turned off.
One of the greatest offenders is a drop-down menu used for site navigation. These can be
difficult to manage in the first place for people with limited mobility, but are doubly dangerous
because developers commonly attach a script that activates the link as soon as the
drop-down selection is clicked. If JavaScript is disabled, nothing happens. Drop-downs for
navigation, like any form, must have a proper form button for submission.
Tables
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, HTML tables were used for displaying data. Then
in the mid-1990s, designers got clever and started using tables for site structure, building
towers of teetering markup that balanced nested tables six or seven layers deep in order
to craft pixel-perfect, graphically heavy designs.
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