3 ms·

No, it isn't for the users to decide, if they are already on a login page they will fill the login field first in nearly all cases. That screenreaders are crap

by corty 5y ago

No, it isn't for the users to decide, if they are already on a login page they will fill the login field first in nearly all cases. That screenreaders are crap doesn't excuse breaking flow for 99.9% of users. Autofocus is essential for the ergonomy of all single-purpose forms, be it a search form, login form or order form. The first form field a user will interact with NEEDS autofocus.

masswerk 5y ago
On the other hand, it's always just a hit of the tab-key away. Also, as always with minorities, the 99% argument isn't of concern. We, as a society, have decided to provide for accessibility requirements. In many countries it's a legal requirement for years to built websites accordingly. As a designer, you're liable. That's it. P.S.: It really depends (quite literary) on context: if you open a modal pop-up on a specific user request (e.g, a button click/press) and users know what to expect and you provide appropriately labeled fields, autofocus is fine and helpful. However, if you open your page with the usual "subscribe!" overlay and autofocus, it's pure evil.
- corty 5y ago
  Accessibility as a legal or moral requirement doesn't mean that anything that someone imagines could be better on some utterly broken screenreader needs to be implemented. I'm sick of this neverending "but broken screenreaders" song. The legal requirement is fulfilled when the page has proper semantic markup, is standards compliant and fulfills the usual non-syntactic stuff like "each img with alt text". Morally I also do not feel obligated to support any old and broken crap, same as I don't support IE. On the context, we do agree however, autofocus should only ever be used on pages that are single-purpose. And no matter what the marketing department says, getting newsletter readers is never the single purpose of any page except for the plain "subscribe to this newsletter" page you might have hidden somewhere.

by corty 5y ago

masswerk 5y ago

On the other hand, it's always just a hit of the tab-key away. Also, as always with minorities, the 99% argument isn't of concern. We, as a society, have decided to provide for accessibility requirements. In many countries it's a legal requirement for years to built websites accordingly. As a designer, you're liable. That's it. P.S.: It really depends (quite literary) on context: if you open a modal pop-up on a specific user request (e.g, a button click/press) and users know what to expect and you provide appropriately labeled fields, autofocus is fine and helpful. However, if you open your page with the usual "subscribe!" overlay and autofocus, it's pure evil.

corty 5y ago
Accessibility as a legal or moral requirement doesn't mean that anything that someone imagines could be better on some utterly broken screenreader needs to be implemented. I'm sick of this neverending "but broken screenreaders" song. The legal requirement is fulfilled when the page has proper semantic markup, is standards compliant and fulfills the usual non-syntactic stuff like "each img with alt text". Morally I also do not feel obligated to support any old and broken crap, same as I don't support IE. On the context, we do agree however, autofocus should only ever be used on pages that are single-purpose. And no matter what the marketing department says, getting newsletter readers is never the single purpose of any page except for the plain "subscribe to this newsletter" page you might have hidden somewhere.