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Bulletproof Web Forms Part Three: Style

Mon, 03 Apr 2006 18:30:29 EST

When web developers abandoned tables, they left behind a vacuum when it comes to forms, and since then form presentation has taken a step backward. Perhaps the most common CSS form design is to align the textual labels to the right along an invisible axis and then align form elements to the left of the axis creating the illusion of a table-like grid while keeping mark-up and CSS small and semantic. Many users find right-aligned text to be more difficult to read, and so balancing your form on an invisible axis can create an unnecessary hurdle for... :: Comments: 5

Bulletproof Web Forms Part Two: Accessibility

Mon, 03 Apr 2006 18:28:58 EST

Now that we've roughed out the content and have written the preliminary mark-up, it's time to take a look at accessibility. Accessibility is an often overlooked aspect of web design that has many benefits. Outlining those benefits, however, is beyond the scope of this article. Suffice it say that it will allow users on any web browser to use your site more easily. If your user is browsing with a screen-reader, text-only browser, a cellphone, or a desktop browser like Firefox, adding accessibility features will... :: Comments: 1

Bulletproof Web Forms Part One: Content

Mon, 03 Apr 2006 18:26:18 EST

A web form is most often the core of a web site. Every e-commerce web site and every community or social web site relies on forms to succeed, yet forms are so often neglected. I've spent some time lately working with forms, and I'm pleased to share my findings in a series of articles where I will cover form content, accessibility, presentation, and behavior of bullet-proof form design.

Setting the scope

All projects large and small have a goal. This project is no different, so let's begin by setting the bar for our form:

The mark-up will be seman... :: Comments: 0

No more recent referrers

Wed, 08 Feb 2006 18:51:29 EST

I disabled the recent referrers section in the sidebar tonight. Part of how your browser works, is it sends the URI or the page you are on to the page you go to next, that's called a referrer. I store that information, and then when people visit the site, I was displaying the last ten referrers that came from other web sites.

The Problem

Just like any other computer technology, it's fairly simple to fake data, and convince your browser to either not send referrer information, or to send false information. It's even possib... :: Comments: 5

Weather Channel Jamz

Mon, 16 Jan 2006 04:55:26 EST

My wife has gotten me into the habit of checking the Weather Channel in the mornings, and I've grown fond of the "Local on the 8s" segment. Apart from actually appreciating knowledge of the forecast, it seems that some of the muzac that they play is pretty groovy. Not all of it, mind you, but if I had to estimate, I'd say that better than half of it keeps my interest. It actually gets a little groove going in the two minutes or so that it plays. The jazzy piano, the moody bass, even the retro guitar sound -- it'... :: Comments: 3

Five Bad Things about Firefox

Thu, 12 Jan 2006 18:10:29 EST

Firefox rocks on Windows, but there are a few things about it that bother me. Especially on the Mac platform.

<input type="hidden"> are not hidden. If you style a page with a rule that adds a border around all inputs, it affects hidden input fields and creates a visible border. The fix is to manually add a CSS declaration like: input[type=hidden] { visibility: hidden; }
<q> elements are wrapped in dynamically generated quotation marks. I think it's fantastic that Firefox supports the IE7, I was intrigued after recently reading an article on positioniseverything about its planned CSS upgrades. I couldn't help but wonder what it is that the IE developers are trying to do. Their motivation interests me, if not their browser.

An end to hackery

Among the updates that IE will reportedly sport is a contemporary set of CSS selectors. IE wi... :: Comments: 0