Help
Context-sensitive help has to be available. Four words of normative text, and the whole question is when you owe it. W3C answers that directly. You owe help only where the label is not enough to describe what the field does, which means a well-written label can be the help. Where you do owe it, two more conditions apply. The reader has to be able to tell that help exists, and to get at it whenever they need it.
Why it matters
The stated goal is not comprehension. It is avoiding a mistake. A field asking for a policy number is obvious to whoever designed the form and opaque to whoever is filling it in, and the cost of guessing wrong is an error message and another attempt. Help placed at the field answers the question at the moment it comes up, which is the only moment the answer is any use.
Who this rule protects
People with writing disabilities, people with reading and intellectual disabilities, and older readers, whom W3C names alongside them for the same difficulty with text input.
How to check it yourself
- Fill in a complex form as somebody unfamiliar with the terms would.
- Note every field where you would stop and look something up.
- For each one, ask first whether a better label would do the job, since W3C treats a clear label as the help.
- Check that the reader can tell help is there, and can reach it whenever they want it rather than only after an error.
Failures we see most often
- A field asks for a reference number and gives no example of the format.
- Help exists only through a general contact page, with nothing specific to the form in front of the reader.
- A hint appears only after the reader gets it wrong, which is not help available whenever they require it.
Who this one is for
Read from this rule's own note above, so the grouping and the note cannot disagree.
- Cognitive and learningpeople for whom the difficulty is understanding, remembering, or staying with it
How to fix it
- Write the label so no hint is needed, which is the cheapest route and a documented one.
- Show the expected format as a worked example. W3C's own is a date field saying day-month-year, because a reader in the United States will otherwise assume month-day-year.
- Put text instructions at the top where a form has few fields, or where most of them want the same format.
- Offer spelling suggestions the reader can accept in one action, which is a sufficient technique in its own right.
Step-by-step fix guides (6)
Passes vs. fails
Passes
The same field adds 'Ten digits, on the top right of your renewal letter' under the label.
Fails
A field labelled 'Policy number' gives no explanation of where to find one.
In audits and lawsuits
This is Level AAA and the routes are wider than most explanations allow. One help link per page satisfies it, as long as the page it points at carries help specific to that page rather than a general help centre. A spell checker with suggestions satisfies it too, provided the reader can accept a suggestion rather than retype it. Keep it apart from criterion 3.2.6 Consistent Help at Level A, which gets confused with this one constantly. That criterion asks that help mechanisms appear in the same relative order on every page, not in the same visual place, and it does not require help to exist at all. This one does.