Probably the reason some Japanese banks still use half-width kana is what Ryosuke said, but as Mike saw in Mizuho and Mitsui Sumitomo, they are moving away from forcing user to type in half-width kana directly, they convert on server side - I think this is a good trend.
Aside from banking, I guess there are still people who *want* to type in Japanese in half-width kana, e.g. "キター" can implicitly add some nuances against "キター". My position is that we allow end-users to type-in whatever they want, but server side people should try to accept users' input as widely as possible and validate or normalize themselves. The point that Yoichi wanted to make was to extract IME-related part of 'intputmode' spec and move out of inputmode, or at least separate the discussion about IME-related modes and other modes, otherwise the discussion will never go anywhere. How about using this bug as a starting point of the discussion (although it's on w3c bugzilla)? https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=23961 Ben Bucksh (cc'ed) pointed out in the bug entry that inputmode has at least 3 aspects (script/language, data type, typing aid). There is room for discussion whether we should split inputmode into every orthogonal modes, but whether we split or not, we would like to separate discussion whether each mode is good or not into these categories. On Sat, Dec 7, 2013 at 5:47 AM, Ryosuke Niwa <rn...@apple.com> wrote: > > On Dec 6, 2013, at 5:30 AM, Michael[tm] Smith <m...@w3.org> wrote: > > > [Maybe we should take this discussion off-list or talk about it some time > > soon over lunch or something. For now though, here are some comments.] > > > > "Takayoshi Kochi (河内 隆仁)" <ko...@google.com>, 2013-12-06 19:53 +0900: > > > >> Just for a data point, lots of Japanese banks still make user type in > >> half-width katakana. > > > > OK, but anecdotally my limited experience as a user with Japanese bank > > sites is that the ones I use (Mizuho and Mitsui Sumitomo) don't require > > half-width katakana input anywhere. > > > > Anyway, as I guess you know, bank sites as a class (along with airline > > sites) are notorious for doing a lot of stupid things that are really bad > > for user experience -- to the point where I think bank sites as a class > > should really be considered a counter-example of good design. > > > >> Here are some random examples: > >> > >> http://www.tominbank.co.jp/for_kojin/mobile/topics_hankaku-kana.html > >>> 「受取人名（半角カナ）」は、半角30字以内で入力してください。 > >> > >> http://www.shinkin.co.jp/okayama/ibandhib/bizib/02_faq/faq_07.html > >>> これらのカナ略語は*全て半角文字で入力*して下さい。 > >>> 実際の振込画面から振込先の会社名を入力する際は、*全て半角カナで入力*してください > >> > >> http://www.yamanashibank.co.jp/anser-web/B-KM-009/help.html > >>> 半角30文字以内で入力してください > > > > I see. So I concede that unfortunately such sites do seem to exist. But > > instead of just accepting that, I think we ought to be asking why and > doing > > some general evangelism to make it clear that's bad practice and also > doing > > some evangelism with specific sites to try to get them to quit doing > that. > > > > What I would seriously like to see instead is an example of even one > single > > good thoughtfully-designed site that's actually requiring half-width kana > > input for some good reason. Just one. > > The problem with banking websites is that they tend to use old > mainframe/database that stores data > in half-width kana in the backend, and maximum length, etc… are different > between full-width and > half-width kana characters. e.g. it's hard to explain to the users that ガ > is considered as two characters > (as it will consist of カ and ゛) when it's visually one character. > > Unfortunately, I can't think of a good way to convince major banks in > Japan to use full-width kana > in their databases and inter-bank transactions. > > - R. Niwa > > -- Takayoshi Kochi
