[IxDA Discuss] Form Validation Messages - How much is needed?

[Alexander Baxevanis]

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 <dhabas1 at yahoo.com> 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:  jsmith at hotmail.com)
>  - 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.
>
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