Make required field validation message more specific?

Hi!

I was wondering if anyone could help me make the validation message for required fields more specific?

At the moment, the default is “This field is required.”, but after an accessibility audit of my website, I was told I should try to make error messages offer specific advice on how to solve the problem, i.e. something like “Please fill in your name” or “The name field cannot be left blank, please fill it in”.

I read all the documentation about smart tags, thinking I might be able to use a smart tag to insert the field name in the validation message, but it didn’t seem possible? Although some of the other validation messages use tags like {suggestion}.

I also thought about changing it on the page with javascript/jQuery, but I only know how to change elements after page load – and the validation messages are generated dynamically when the user clicks “send” on the form.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.