Have you ever tried to add a different background color like red to highlight invalid input fields when validation fails? With JSF 2.0, this is a trivial process, here is one way; .ui-input-invalid { background-color:red } <h:inputText value="#{bean.property}" required="true" styleClass="#{not component.valid ? 'ui-input-invalid' : ''}" /> component refers to the current component being rendered a