Order Up!

A quick note on form elements and tab ordering: if you are going to include links inside the form to provide more information on what a field is doing, you MUST unequivocally and without question, absolutely with no exceptions, positively set the tab ordering on your form so that those links are not included in the ever-popular keyboard shortcut of tabbing to the next item in the form.

Breaking the flow of "enter data - tab - enter data - tab" by highlighting help text interrupts the user's expectations, possibly to such an extent that said user will stop mid-form to write about it on his blog!

On Public Speaking

For my own future reference, and because it may interest others, here's an interesting post I found via Boing Boing today. Duncan Davidson's "Dear Speakers" - a few notes on public speaking from a man tasked with photographing talks and round tables and the like.