I gave the mint.com site a try and agree with your colorful remarks about its effect on the experience =]. I've designed dozens of such forms with validation on the previous field and feel the same as you - it's a good start but feels like it could be better.
I wonder if it would make more sense to detect when the submit button receives focus or the user hovers a mouse over it, AND most of the fields are attempted (if not completed), then put a little X or something over the button with a polite message indicating that there are still things left to do. That would give people a chance to complete the form in their own time (correct as necessary), let them know what's wrong all at once so they can fix them all at once, and finish with one click at the end. Would need a heckuva lot of testing, and I'm just spitballing, but it could be an improvement =] Bryan http://www.bryanminihan.com -----Original Message----- Right now, I'm not 100% sure about validations on the previous field as you leave the next field. Users focus remarkably narrowly on the left-hand portion of the field to type into, and I suspect (but do not have evidence yet to prove) that they may very well fail to spot the validation on the previous field. But I think that may not matter, so long as the page-level validation gracefully handles the situation where users have failed to correct as they go. Best, Caroline Jarrett ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ 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
