Re: [Usability] label alignments

[Gregory Merchan <merchan phys lsu edu>]

On Mon, Feb 11, 2002 at 06:29:25PM +0000, Calum Benson wrote:
> Havoc Pennington wrote:
> > 
> > Do we have an official policy on label alignment?
> >
> > gnome-terminal prefs are like the second one right now, and some other
> > things are like the first. I haven't looked to see which is the most
> > popular.
> 
> I don't think we currently say anything on that in the draft HIG; it
> should be in the Layout & Alignment section, but, er... it's not.  I'll
> get onto it.
<snip>

We have a mix. Some graphics show everything left-aligned but the text
in the layout section says labels should be to an immediate side.

I don't know if this can be decided absolutely. I have a book that
recommends:

    Left-justify the labels and the fields separately: [...] This style
    works best in two situations:
      1. When the data in the fields don't align well -- for example
         when some fields contain left-justified alphanumeric characters
         and others contain decimal aligned numbers.
      2. When the window has a mixture of input and protected (view-only)
         fields. Since protected fields don't have text-entry boxes, you
         can only align the labels.

    Right-justify the labels and left-justify the fields: This style
    works well when the data themselves are aligned (all alphanumeric
    or all decimal) or when the field edges are obvious.

Obviously, this is an old book. :-)  But I think a recommendation for
which to use when is best. Perhaps there's a web form design guide that
has such?

I seem to recall some discussion about this on HIG list. The Java HIG
recommends what I snipped, but I think the rough consensus on the list was
to keep labels and fields together.

Maybe this image is helpful:
  http://www.phys.lsu.edu/students/merchan/shots/label-alignments.jpg


Cheers,
Greg Merchan