5 ms·

I put some placeholder text on an input field and that shows up as grey text (in Chrome). I had a user contact me because they thought it was disabled. So yea

• thesuitonym 5y ago
  Placeholder text is a tough one... The example is usually a good idea, but it can be confusing to users, especially if the example text happens to be what they would have entered anyway, they may think it's safe to skip, then get frustrated when your validation tells them it's empty. I don't know what the solution is, I'm not a UX engineer, I just know it can be a problem.
  • onychomys 5y ago
    If there's room, I always make the placeholder read something like "Example: 12345", which makes it clear that they need to change it and also maybe that it's a number or whatever. Can't always do that on really short input fields, but it helps.
    • int_19h 5y ago
      Using italic font for placeholder text would help to quickly distinguish it from actual typed input - some apps do that. But, is it something that can be controlled on a webpage?