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Designing Purchase Order & Contact Forms
Have you ever been ready to purchase something from a website only to discover that the order form won't accept your name? or address?
An ill-conceived form and database not only prevents some people from using your site/services, it is disrespectful of the visitor. Dare to get your customers name and address information right. It might save your sale. Most of the problems with order or contact forms come about because the form developer expected everyone to have the same sort of information they would be inputting into the form.
Name Fields: Most but not all order forms use separate fields for the purchaser’s name. There are commonly 2 name fields first and last. Yet many people have their middle initial as part of the name as it appears on their credit card. Better to have either just one field or three fields.
- First Name
- Middle Name
- Last Name
Name Field Validation: Since the purchaser’s name is necessary to process an order most developers believe there should be some form of required field validation usually starting with the person's name. Issues in validating names are:
- Mandatory fields – no empty or null fields
- Not everyone has a first, middle & last name. Reserve required
field validation for last name only. Examples:
- While trendy or used primarily by celebrities there are some people who have legally changed their name to only one name. It is legal to have only one name, design for what is legal not necessary what is ‘common’ in the U.S.
- In some countries there is no distinction between the various parts of a name or the order is different.
- Not everyone has a first, middle & last name. Reserve required
field validation for last name only. Examples:
- Suggestion for alternative validation:
- Set a form validation script to alert the user to the blank field. E.g.,
“This field has been left blank. Is that correct? [OK] [CANCEL]”
- Set a form validation script to alert the user to the blank field. E.g.,
“This field has been left blank. Is that correct? [OK] [CANCEL]”
- Type of entry accepted
- Do not limit to alphabetic letters only.
- In my personal experience I have been very frustrated by fields that
did not accept either spaces, apsotrophes or hyphens. Hyphens are popular
in names outside
the
use
and are becoming more common here. I have randomly generated some names
to use as
examples form:
- Ilsa Van Der Westhuizen
- Karen Smith-Myers
- Mohammed Al-Jazerra
- Cruella D'Ville
- Maria Garcia Y Hernandez
- Joseph de Léon
- Suggestion for alternative validation:
- Allow for a hyphen and add a form note on using the “-“. This accommodates those who require a null field(s) and those who use a hyphenated name
- Consider using a character set in document that allows for accented
letters. Especially important if you are marketing outside of the U.S.
- Length of fields
- The old FirstName = string(10); LastName = string(15) stuff does not work for many names. While names in the U.S. and much of the western world are short (less than 15 characters per name section) you cannot assume that all people placing orders will have names that fit in a
Addresses
- Allow for an address with multiple lines, while residential address in
the U.S. tend to be one line business address and overseas address can be
considerably longer. Examples:
- New Zealand - PO Box 74-235, Auckland 1015, New Zealand
- UK - Suite 688 LLOYDS, ONE Lime St, London EC3M 7HA, England
- Singapore - 9 Raffles Place, #27-01, Republic Plaza, Singapore 048619
- Lack of state or province see New Zealand example above
- Postal codes validation that exclude alpha characters such as the London example above.
- U.S. developers tend to think in street address, city, state and zip. Most remember to add country for an international form but fail to take into account but don't adress the way different countries have their address conventions.
Conlusion
The person who cannot input their information into the form you design whether it be an order form for goods/services or a contact form for feedback/information requests is a person who cannot be a customer. Be respectful of your visitor and give them the opportunity give you the information you need to do business with them.