[IxDA Discuss] Marking required fields on desktop UIs?

[Anderson, Douglas W.]

Hi Sebi, et al.,

One of the application development tools with which I have worked enforces *bold* labels on required fields (those fields defined to be required under all circumstances).  Of course, other fields become "required" by application logic under various circumstances and have plain labels.  That tool doesn't allow the labels of such fields to be changed programmatically to bold, which doesn't help the user to form a valid mental model of the meaning of bold labels. If you can control the boldness, it might make a good cue.

Although color is rightly to be avoided as the sole cue, I would think that a colored field background that is of a different grayscale value than that of optional fields would be distinct even for most forms of color vision impairment. The downside would be reduced contrast between text and background for some fields.

How about bold borders on required fields? Might that make the contents of required fields more difficult to read?

Ah well, perhaps we're beginning to see some of the reasons why there is no universal standard...

Peace,
Doug Anderson
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, MN

Opinions expressed are necessarily mine, not necessarily those of the Mayo Foundation.

original message:
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2006 09:40:20 +0200
From: "Sebi Tauciuc" <stauciuc at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Marking required fields on desktop UIs?
To: ixdadiscuss <discuss at ixda.org>

So the issue is not validation, but the initial visual clues to quickly
distinguish between mandatory and non-mandatory fields.
I think if there had been a desktop UI 'standard' more established than
asterisks, someone would have mentioned it by now. Personally, I see nothing wrong with asterisks and nothing else more familiar comes to my mind.
Ofcourse, we could try some other visual clues, like a bold face for labels, for instance. But that's just an idea, not a standard...

Sebi <http://www.sergiutauciuc.ro/en/>