Hi Jennifer, On 21 Sep 2009, at 09:01, jennifer wrote:
I've been asked several times by the owners of our lead database, which is generated by any/all forms we have on our site, to increase validation of the fields of any/all forms to ensure - or "force" to use their term - the user to input valid data. (In this way, they get a "clean" db, is really the gist.) Our fields include: First name Last name Title Company name Email Phone Street address City / State / Zip (*Note, these are not the precise labels) Anyway, I figure we can and should, to a degree validate phone number
I'd personally recommend leaving phone numbers alone :-) Too many folk have different ways of writing phone numbers, or need to add something like "and then push #3 and ask for Tracy" to the end.
and email fields without too much issue.
You can check an e-mail has the correct structure - but you can't check that the e-mail is "correct" (without actually sending the e- mail and having the user confirm.)
What is desired, however, is to 'validate' that all those other fields - e.g., name - get input with reliable information.
Define "reliable"? Is the issue it not being filled in at all? Being filled in with bogus info? Something else?
I don't think this can be done, to be honest, and it just feels plain wrong. I understand the internal desire for it, but I've commented that such validation brings up more questions about error messaging/alerts than is worth it in the end.
Whether it's possible or not will depend to some extent on the motivation of the user. I'm highly motivated to put my phone number on some forms (e.g. when expensive hardware is being delivered and they need to check somebody is in). In others I will go out of my way to give a fake number (e.g. when I'm forced to register one when downloading a demo and want to avoid the annoying sales calls.) The data bods should find the idea of incorrect data more frightening than absent information - so that's a useful axe to wield.
Plus, they're trying to get more people to fill out these forms, and that sort of validation seems counter-intuitive.
Again - depends on the motivation. I'd be happy to be reminded that I've forgotten my postcode on a form for where my parcel should be delivered. I'd find it annoying when the address is irrelevant to the action I'm trying to take.
Thoughts? Resources? (I've looked, not found any yet)...
The usual pointer to Luke Wroblewski's "Web Form Design" book :-) Cheers, Adrian -- http://quietstars.com - twitter.com/adrianh - delicious.com/adrianh ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
