Internal issue 3092 - Option to add the word 'required' instead of using an asterisks

[ticket-sync[bot]]

An accessibility expert (see internal ticket for more details) mentioned it is considered best practice for government forms to have (required) instead of *? e.g.:

Your message (required) instead of: Your message*

Would it be possible to add the option to switch the asterisks to the word? The word “required” would need to be edited in order for us to translate it.

[GCHQ-Developer-847]

About the "needing to be edited", this would be like the maxCharactersMessage prop on the text field. I.e. the default text would be "(required)", but a prop called something like requiredMessage could be added which allows customers to change the actual text to whatever they want

[GCHQ-Developer-847]

This would need to be changed for all input fields.

One concern I have about this ticket is affecting user familiarity, as some apps could have asterisks, some could have "(required)". Maybe we add a prop for now, and then in v4 (As it would probably be considered a breaking change), make it so all fields have "(required)"? (If we decide we should make the change)

[mi6-577]

General UX note, it all depends on context;

If a form is predominantly mandatory fields, place (Optional) against those that are not mandatory. If a form is predominantly optional fields, place (required) against those that are not optional.