I would highlight the field that fails validation and I'd put the following message next to it:
"This doesn't look like a [first name|last name|city]. Maybe you made a spelling mistake?" This should be OK for users that just accidentally pressed a number key when they were typing. Of course in some cases you will get users who deliberately attempt to enter junk in some of these fields, but I can't see why you should give them any more precise explanation. Just make sure that you cover all cases: names of people and cities sometimes have apostrophes, dashes, dots etc. and you should accept that. There's no better way to alienate your users from the beginning than to discard their name as they choose to spell it. Regards, Alex On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 9:28 PM, Don Habas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'd like to get some feedback on form validation. In my organization (major > insurance company), it is necessary to validate the following fields: > > For existing and new customers: > > - first name (letters only) > - last name (letters only) > - address > - city (only letters) > - state > - zip (only numbers) > - email (correct format is: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) > - phone (only numbers) > > and in some cases: > - SSN > - Date of birth > > The question we're struggling with is since most of these fields are very > common, how much explanation is needed in the validation messages. For > example, do we really need to say that a first name should only contain > letters, or is it overkill? (We don't expect 50 Cent to be submitting any > forms). > The site is for consumers in the U.S., so we're not concerned about letters > in postal codes, etc. > > Thanks. > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > http://mail.yahoo.com > ________________________________________________________________ > 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 > ________________________________________________________________ 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
