[whatwg] Question about "Type here your search word(s)" input box

[Ian Hickson]

On Fri, 2 Jul 2004, Matthew Thomas wrote:
> On 1 Jul, 2004, at 12:16 PM, martijn wrote:
>> ...
>> There are lots of sites (and even Opera has it with the Google search
>> box) that use an input box, which have some predefined value in it and
>> when you focus it, that value disappears. A lot of times you see it
>> used in a search input box. Something like "Type here your search
>> word(s)".
>
> That's bad design because:

Actually I have it on good authority that formal usability tests have
shown that users actually find it easier to understand controls that have
the label as described above instead of to the left of the control.

This intuitively makes no sense to me whatsoever but there we go.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
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Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'