Support for Drupal 7 is ending on 5 January 2025—it’s time to migrate to Drupal 10! Learn about the many benefits of Drupal 10 and find migration tools in our resource center.The attached patch changes the style of the cursor when hovering the asterisk used to indicate a required form field to a help cursor, which is usually a question mark (browser dependent). This is because the asterisk is used in a relatively abstract way and it has a title text. The help cursor shows users that there is something more to the asterisk then they might know.
| Comment | File | Size | Author |
|---|---|---|---|
| #2 | form_required_cursor_01.patch | 621 bytes | Xano |
| form_required_cursor_00.patch | 412 bytes | Xano | |
Comments
Comment #2
XanoComment #3
Damien Tournoud CreditAttribution: Damien Tournoud commentedI believe this makes sense.
Comment #4
XanoComment #5
xmacinfoI've applied this quick patch successfully. However, I'm questioning the use of the Help cursor on the asterisk symbol (*) for required fields. I am under the impression that clicking on the asterisk a new window will either popup or open, whick does not happen here.
I think that in usability testing user will expect more when we show them the Help cursor. So, even if this patch applies correctly, I would not include this in D7.
Can we keep the Help cursor enabled only for actual help content? For example, in the module list, all the help links should display the help cursor.
Comment #6
XanoThe 'required' asterisk already provides help. Because the text is so short, it is being provided as a title text, but still it is help which should be marked as such.
Comment #7
xmacinfoThe problem is, with the help cursor, users are expecting a new page or popup by clicking on the asterisk. Which is simply not the case here since clicking does nothing.
Adding this cursor adds confusion.
However, how are screen readers reacting to the Help cursor? Are the screen reader expecting also a new page?
This patch definitely needs review from the Usability group. :-)
Comment #8
XanoI have never, ever seen or heard anybody talking about such a relationship between help cursors and the help items offer. IMO it's rubbish, because hyperlinks and nothing else indicate that users can go to a new document.
Screen readers don't respond to CSS very much and as far as I know and can find in Google they don't respond to cursors at all.
Comment #9
yoroy CreditAttribution: yoroy commentedI *think* I'd interpret the cursor change as a suggestion that the asterisk is an actual clickable link, too. Not sure why we don't have a "* indicates a required field" text somewhere like the rest of the internets does.
As it is now, I suspect adding the help cursor would indeed generate unwanted clicks.
Comment #10
karschsp CreditAttribution: karschsp commentedThere's a task http://drupal.org/node/72197 "Forms should show explanation of required (*) fields"
Comment #11
catchGoing to mark this as duplicate of the older issue - I also thing the cursor might indicate people should click it.
#72197: Forms should show explanation of required (*) fields
Comment #12
XanoPointer cursors indicate clickable content.
Comment #13
Xano