[IxDA Discuss] Marking required fields on desktop UIs?

[Sebi Tauciuc]

I am just curious: did this approach work well in your case?
I understand how it is much easier for users to find the required fields,
but I would also have thought that grouping by content and meaning comes
first. For instance, I can't imagine an address composed by both mandatory
and non-mandatory fields being split over those two groups.
... Doesn't this model break user expectations?

Sebi



On 11/1/06, Tubman, Wahne <wahne.tubman at gs.com> wrote:
>
> [Please voluntarily trim replies to include only relevant quoted
> material.]
>
> We addressed this issue recently as well. What we did was to group
> required fields using the group box control and placed them at the top
> of the form. We followed the required group with a set of non-required
> fields also displayed within a group box. We labeled each group box
> accordingly- Required Fields, Optional Fields.
> Validation happens on submit. If any of the required fields are without
> values we display an asterisk next to the offending field.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com
> [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of
> Alan Wexelblat
> Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 6:15 PM
> To: discuss-interactiondesigners.com at lists.interactiondesigners.com
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Marking required fields on desktop UIs?
>
> [Please voluntarily trim replies to include only relevant quoted
> material.]
>
> Greetings
>
> I am having trouble determining if there is a standard or best
> practice for marking which fields are required on a desktop
> application form.  This is a fairly standard Windows UI with lots of
> dialogs.  Each dialog has some mandatory and some optional fields, and
> which are which tends to change with the data, system parameters, etc.
>
> Therefore, I want to have some visual treatment so users can know at a
> glance what fields are mandatory.  On the Web there is a convention to
> mark required fields with asterisks (*) but this convention does not
> seem to have been back-ported to desktop UIs.
>
> Anyone have any pointers or suggestions?
>
> --
> --Alan Wexelblat
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-- 
Sergiu Sebastian Tauciuc
http://www.sergiutauciuc.ro/en/