NEWS & REPORTS · EDITORIAL BRIEF
GOV.UK Frontend 6.6.0 improves character and word counting
GOV.UK Design System team
Government Digital Service · 15 October 2026
The finding or development
The new countType option counts user-perceived characters or word boundaries, improving handling of special characters and emojis. The release also deprecates the older maxwords option.
What supports it
Official release notes and Design System announcement; implementation guidance, not an outcome study.
Reviewed: Release notes and official announcement.
Why it matters for design
Review whether visible form counters and server-side limits agree before adopting the new behaviour.
Read with this in mind
Improved counting requires browser support. Unsupported browsers show a static limit message. The release does not demonstrate better completion rates or accessibility outcomes.
Original source
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Reference tools · Paperpile & more
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Paperpile’s browser extension guide (opens an external website)This is the complete UX Observatory brief, not the publisher’s full article. Follow the original source to read the work.