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Don’t meddle with user input

Martin Underhill warns against designs that manipulate user input, and the maxlength attribute in particular, which prevents users from typing anything beyond a certain character limit.

Whilst these features are often implemented with the best of intentions – to assist the user in inputting data in the correct format, for example – they’re not very accessible solutions.

Martin references the GOV.UK Design System’s Date Input component, which expects a format like 27 3 2007 but does not prevent users from typing longer numbers (or indeed typing a-z characters). Someone raised a GitHub issue to discuss adding maxlength to the fields, but Hanna Laakso responds:

If you use maxlength attribute on a form field to limit user input, users might not receive appropriate feedback of the limit. For instance, the user might not notice that not all the information they entered appeared in the form field … It is generally better to let users enter their information in a way that suits them and allow them to submit the form.=

Instead, using hint text to nudge the user in the right direction, alongside validation to tell the user how to fix the problem in any particular form field, is the suggested way forward. Martin notes that “this should also help satisfy 3.3.2 Labels or Instructions and 3.3.3 Error Suggestion, respectively, from the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)”.

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