101 UX Principles

Chapter #67. Write Clear Labels for Controls

Another small change you can make, which will make the world of difference to your users using assistive technologies, is writing clear labels:

Bad:

Good:

Pre-filling your field with "placeholder" (or "watermark") text may look tidy, but it's not supported in all browsers, and disappears when the focus moves to the input field.

You can, however, include both, which allows the field to be identified and gives some assistance to users as to the kind of information that is needed for that input.

An input with a ...