101 UX Principles - Second Edition by Will Grant

Author:Will Grant [Will Grant]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Packt Publishing
Published: 2022-05-19T16:00:00+00:00

Learning points

Don’t ask for more information than you need

Explain to the user why you’re collecting it and what you will do with it

Every additional field you add to a form reduces conversion

#51

Validate Data Entry as Soon as Possible

Validation on a form means showing the user some feedback that there’s a problem with some of the information they’ve painstakingly entered.

Validate data entered into a field as soon as possible, when the user moves to the next field, so you know they’re done typing in the current one.

Client-side validation isn’t always technically possible, but you should aim for it wherever you can because the “round trip” to the server and back is frustrating if there are errors.

Figure 51.1: Tell the user to try again before they submit the form

There are lots of techniques for doing this, including plenty of third-party validation libraries for popular programming languages and frameworks. In the bad old days, the user would get a (sometimes partially filled) form back after submitting, with errors marked in red like school homework.

Nowadays, it should be possible to show the user what they’ve done wrong in real time (for example, too few digits for a phone number) and the steps they can take to rectify it.

The same goes for less common inputs like date pickers—they should include the logic to know that, for example, a hotel guest can’t check out before they’ve been checked in. This is a simple check that can help you to avoid a whole raft of common problems.

Don’t ever clear the form data just because the user made a mistake (see #43, Respect Users’ Time and Effort in Your Forms)—the exception to this can be payment card information, which is often obfuscated after a form is submitted.

There are bonus points for correcting common errors, for example, the user typing an email address ending in gmail.con could display the suggestion Did you mean gmail.com? Fix it for me!.

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