Designing A Textbox, Unabridged

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Smashing Magazine
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This is a super-detailed post about building a textarea with feedback about how much you’ve written in it, relative to the defined maxlength. There are some great recommendations here, especially:

  • Start with sensible helper text;
  • Use JavaScript to smartly enhance the experience; and
  • Always provide a non-JavaScript fallback.

I gave similar advice in a piece I wrote for Web Standards Sherpa a few years back.