[IxDA Discuss] Input Field Lengths

[Paul Schreiber]

[I sent this a week ago, but it never showed up. Trying again.]

Valerie Franek wrote:

> I'm currently working on revising some web design standards at work

...

> In my experience, the guideline for determining the size of input  
> fields
> is to use a size similar to the information that the user will be
> entering.  So, a field for a 16-digit credit card number should be  
> about
> 16 characters long; a field for a 3-digit CVV code should be about 3
> digits long.

A field for a credit card should be 19 characters long, to allow for  
three spaces in between the four groups of four digits. Allowing  
users to add spaces improves readability and decreases the number of  
transcription and other data entry errors.

> However, the standards I'm reviewing suggest that all input fields  
> should
> have the same width, so as to provide visual consistency within the  
> page.
> The size is determined by an average length across all fields.

This can be done separately; since this a web page, use CSS.

<input name="creditcard" type="text" maxlength="19" size="19"  
style="width: 150px;" />



Paul

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