An ARIA solution
(required)
Example Code
<label for="first_name">First Name</label>
<input name="first_name" id="first_name" aria-required="true" size="25" maxlength="25" /> (required)
New screen readers (JAWS 10 and NVDA) with new browsers (FF 3 and IE 8) will now indicate the required status of the form element (and that's all).