Andrew L. Van Slaars

Users don’t follow directions. At least when I’m a user, I don’t.

If you have a text field on your website or in your application and there is a limit to the number of characters it can except, don’t just tell me about it, make sure that’s how it works!

I just filled out a form with a text field that was followed by the text “(max. 20 characters)”. How many characters does it let me enter? As many as I want! Adding the MAXLENGTH attribute to your input tag, maybe a little JavaScript to let me know when I’ve exceeded the limit. Maybe, just maybe, you could validate your form to make sure I haven’t messed the input up.

This particular form simply and without warning let me submit the text and cut it off at 20 characters. I happened to have entered 22 characters and now my output makes me look like I can’t speak English.

Creating a quality user experience requires a little work on your part to make sure the end user can be successful using your application, even when they don’t follow instructions.

Andrew Product Design, Usability design, Usability