[Sigia-l] date entry popups

[Alex Bainbridge]

Jon,

From: sigia-l-admin at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-admin at asis.org]On Behalf Of
Jon Hanna

> I'm curious as to why you think one should bother with alt attributes if
you
> are using pop-ups.

I have 2 comments to add to this:

1) With the usability testing we conducted calendar popups were used on 6 of
the potential 16 occasions. We observed that when users did use a popup that
there was a lower potential for an incorrectly entered date.

We observed that, with our non-statistically significant group of users, it
was not obvious that clicking the icon made a calendar popup appear - or
that this would help them enter dates.

We concluded (and this is up for discussion) that by adding an ALT text
(which appears when a user, who does have images turned on, places their
mouse pointer above the image) would inform the user what would happen if
clicked

In particular - this is why we liked the ALT text that stated "Clicking this
launches a popup calendar which you can select your dates from"

2) These are not concrete guidelines. In the sector I work in usability is
not highly regarded - so defining something that designers / developers can
easily apply and that is applicable to the majority of sites is my goal.
They are not meant to stifle innovation or evolution.

The guidelines define a minimum acceptable standard - not the maximum
level - hopefully they can be improved upon over time! In particular your
comment about users with images turned off may be an area where improvement
can be made.



kind regards

alex

--
Alex Bainbridge
Senior Consultant

alex.bainbridge at travelucd.com
Company : http://www.travelucd.com/
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