21 Phone number ≠ 3 + 3 + 4

Justin, a North American phone number is not simply 3 numbers followed by 3 more followed by 4. There’s more to check there if you want to get a valid NANP number. Area codes always start with numerals 2-9; so do prefixes. It’s also possible to spell out a phone number with letters; and while the average phone number is just numbers in most peoples address books, why force the end user to figure out that ‘d’=‘3’ on the dial pad? That’s just lazy.

Allowing one field for entry (and allowing the user to enter it as they prefer) is just plain user friendly. The more separate fields you force a user to tab through, the less likely they are to complete the form. Sure, to answer someone else’s comment, you might provide an example of the suggested format, but not all users will even heed that as they fill in the form.

posted at 05:46 pm on December 20, 2005 by John Lascurettes

22 The proud programmer

Good article. It didn’t mention much about when the programmer changes what the form fields are supposed to do. Many times I have clicked on a radio button that let me to another page, and it made me scared of the whole website.

This is about the proud programmer, who believed that pulling off some cool trick, people are going to think that what he did is awesome. Other programmers would probably think so, but normal people will be scared off by his gimmick. Just because you can do it, it doesn’t mean that you should!

Another proud programmer is the one who thinks because he can program a form, then he’s the elite person who shouldn’t listen what other people, like the author of this article, is saying, so he just goes off and does it his own way. People should be thanking him that he programmed a working form in the first place! he thinks. And that’s also bad.

I actually do read a lot of these articles on usability, and I live on Jakob’s website, and there is still much I need to learn.

posted at 06:24 pm on December 20, 2005 by Edmundo Ruiz

23 Indication of mandatory fields should be included

Very nice roundup. You mentioned the importance of the label tag for accessibility. I would like to add that the indication of mandatory fields should also be included inside the same label element. If it’s not, screenreader readers are forced to leave the ‘forms mode’ to find out which fields are required to fill out (which can be quite time consuming). By putting the asterisk (or whatever you’re using to indicate mandatory fields) inside a span (that’s nested inside the label element), you can style it differently and even float it to the right of a text field if you’d like.

posted at 07:27 pm on December 20, 2005 by Roel Van Gils

24 Do you live in an Igloo?

You should be glad you don’t have to use select boxes to choose your street type and house type. When creating/modifying an address on our website you must manually select from a list of hundreds of different types of streets and units, with no way to simply type them in.

One of the choices for unit type is “Igloo”, and perhaps your Igloo can be found inside a room, yes a room (as in street type). Why we have to do this I do not know, nor do I know why I’m not allowed to use checkboxes and radio buttons anywhere on the website, or why you have to “select” your birthday from drop downs.

At least one doesn’t have to select their name.

So even though I completely agree with this article, I just wanted to remind everyone that designers rarely have the input they deserve (at least for me).

posted at 09:49 pm on December 20, 2005 by Rowan Wigginton

25 JavaScript

Good article but I am surprised nobody has mentioned unnecessary JavaScript in forms. I have seen many forms with no submit button but instead a link with “[removed]submit()” as the target. There is no conceivable reason for doing this and it breaks just about every usability rule including preventing users from submitting with the enter key.

posted at 11:09 pm on December 20, 2005 by Tamlyn Rhodes

26 Termination of speed

Most programming languages have a dedicated function to validate whether it’s numeric and/or alphabetical.

It’s the delimiters -,.,(space), etc. we let our users enter that devours our time for validation – this is all I’m saying.

Remember, if a person wants to give a false phone number, they’ll do it. Even if it means going out of their way to enter the phone number of their local pizza place.

posted at 11:43 am on December 21, 2005 by Justin Rovang

27 Termination of determination

It’s the delimiters -,.,(space), etc. we let our users enter that devours our time for validation – this is all I’m saying.

So your time is more important than all the end users’ time put together is all you’re really saying.

posted at 12:42 pm on December 21, 2005 by John Lascurettes

28 Caption?

Just out of curiosity, caption is mentioned in the context of forms and labels. I’ve only seen it used to label tables, which is consistant with what I’ve seen in the w3’s docs. I saw no mention of a change in the caption element for xhtml 1.1, am I missing something?

posted at 01:23 pm on December 21, 2005 by Adam Sanderson

29 Multi-select

As far as multi-select boxes go; you’re not going to convince me that it is not a confusing and haphazard field for most users to work with and my take on it remains the same.

Absolutely agreed. I have to support a couple of web-based services at work, and both of these use multi-select boxes with potentially 50 or more entries – fortunately they are optional ‘enhancement’ features rather than essential to the use of the site. Even though it says clearly by the side “Press Ctrl+Click to select more than one option, and it explains this in the instruction manuals I wrote, and I point this out whenever I am showing someone how to use the system, it still seems that the majority of people are unaware they can select more than one entry.

I think a key problem is that it looks too much like a normal drop-down select menu, and a lot of people don’t twig that it is different.

posted at 02:19 pm on December 21, 2005 by Stephen Down

30 Requiring null values

One website that I use quite a lot is for looking up train times & fares (UK) – Qjump – and there are three aspects of the enquiry form that irritate me.

One trivial one is that when you mouseover a field, it highlights the entry by turning it lime green. This means that if you click in a field and type, without moving the mouse, you can barely read what you’re typing.

A second is that if it doesn’t recognise the station name you type in, it gives you a huge long list to choose from without making an attempt at a “best guess”. Far better for it to suggest the most likely option, and list the others below in case it was wrong.

But the third, and most pertinent to this article, is this. If you select “one-way journey”, but then enter a date a/o time in the section marked “return”, instead of ignoring that data, it spits it back at you and rudely tells you that you are not allowed to give a return date when you’re making a one-way journey.

posted at 02:30 pm on December 21, 2005 by Stephen Down

Discussion Closed

New comments are not being accepted, but you are welcome to explore what people said before we closed the door.

Got something to say?

Discuss this article. We reserve the right to delete flames, trolls, and wood nymphs.

Create a new account or sign in below if you’d like to leave a comment.

Forgot your password?

Subscribe to this article's comments: RSS (what’s this?)