IDCC 370: Web Design I Fall 2009

Check this out:

In class Tuesday, we will continue working on the final elements of Exercise 7, the ice cream survey. I will clarify any issues you may have with the checkbox and radio form elements, especially the intricacies of the Name-Value pair and the unique ID for the label.

You may be interested in learning more about Fitts' law, as that is the chief conceptual underpinning of form field accessibility. Remember the Buchholz simple formulation of the law: "The smaller the target and the longer the distance necessary to travel to hit the target, the greater the likelihood that the target will be missed."

All of this means, simply enough, that, in designing forms, you will want to make the checkbox and radio button areas as large as possible; therefore, we need to include the label and the form element as the entire target, thereby increasing the probability that your respondent will easily be able to access all elements of your form.

If you have questions, just e-mail me at wbuchholz@bentley.edu. Feel free to comment on this announcement, or if you want to e-mail it, click on the little mail icon directly below. Note also that each announcement has a permanent link, available through the announcement title and posting date.

Labels: accessibility, check boxes, Fitts' law, Form Elements Accessibility Guide, name-value pair, radio buttons