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But It’s My Name Dagblastit!: Intelligent Form Validation

So this may come off as a rant but it really isn’t. Yes it was inspired by 2 frustrating sign-up processes in a row and most rants start off that way but I promise it will have an educational twinge to it.

So last night I was signing up for something and I filled out their rather short form only to be given an error:

OK, So my name is J.J. but they won’t allow that. What the heck? I feel like I am being discriminated against. So I decide to just put JJ in…

Good Gosh Almighty I am starting to get angry! I mean come on. My first name has to be 3 characters?! How many people do I know with 2 letter names? Well myself for one.. my brother Ty… my other brother Al… yeah you get the point.

So I just chalked this all up to someone not really thinking… or their name was Indian and really long.

Well I went to order some prints from the local Walgreens and had to signup for an account there. Lo and Behold I submit the form only to get this…

You have got to be kidding me! Fortunately for them I didn’t go all Internet jihad on them and they allowed “JJ” to pass.

The moral of the story is this. You have got to think though all scenarios when doing your testing and building your code. I know that speed is of the essence but you have got to make sure that your validation is going to accommodate your customers… not tell them that their God-given name is not allowed.

J.J. Merrick on July 21, 2008 | Filed Under ColdFusion

13 Comments

Adam Tuttle  on July 21st, 2008

I have a sudden urge to mail a bag of poo to 5543 Edmondson Pike 116, Nashville, TN

J.J. Merrick  on July 21st, 2008

Go right ahead, the lady at the UPS store isn’t going to like it! :-)

Todd Rafferty  on July 21st, 2008

Uh, why isn’t your email jj@cyber or j.j.@cyber? :) You can’t be too picky if you’re not using J.J. everywhere. :)

J.J. Merrick  on July 21st, 2008

hahaha Good point Todd. I actually used jay because 9 years ago when I first got the cyber-jay.com domain name I had to use jay because they only allowed 3 or more characters. I have since moved to jj@themerrickhouse for the most part :-D

Ben Nadel  on July 21st, 2008

I can’t believe names have to be greater than 2 letters. I have had two very close asian friends that violate this:

Ye
Yu

I have to imagine there are many more… too bad they can never be considered human :(

Brett Davis  on July 21st, 2008

Wow, I never knew developers actually went the extra mile to validate peoples names in form fields beyond making sure that they entered sometime. LOL I guess my old stand by sign up or firstname: a lastname: b is not gonna work on this site.

Alan  on July 21st, 2008

That is just craptacular. I know a certain poker player that could stand to see the comment about really thinking things through to the detail… Any guesses?

J.J. Merrick  on July 21st, 2008

@Ben yeah I never even thought about that sect of people. They tend to have 2 letter first names ALOT.

@alan haha yeah… JP! :-)

@brett Do you actually do any work? haha

J.J. Merrick  on July 21st, 2008

BTW editing the post to link to the form… maybe they will see the post and change it!

Jeff Gladnick  on July 21st, 2008

Two letters only? What about people named “Al”. And how is Bo Jackson supposed to signup?!!!?

Dagblastit  on July 23rd, 2008

hi J.J. This post cracks me up. I hope you don’t mind that I really like the sound of the name “Dagblastit” and decided to call myself that. But on a (slightly) more serious note, it isn’t only the minimum number of characters on a form entry that one should think about, it’s also the MAXIMUM number. What am I talking about? At our trade show display estore we do allow one character order form entries (i.e. first name could be “A”), but there is also a max number of characters for each entry. For “email address”, it used to be something like 40 (just guessing). Anyway, longfirstname.longlastname@subdomain.longgovernmentagency.gov placed an order and their email address got chopped. They didn’t get their order confirmation and we had to phone them to find out what their email address was. We have since increased the number of characters saved). So intelligent form validation/design requires thinking about both the minimum and the maximum. ~ Steve (aka Mr. Al Dagblastit, aka Pinnacle Trade Show Booths)

jjjj james  on August 26th, 2008

j.j. ISNT your ‘god given’ name – in the loose sense (I DO know what you real name is) and in a strict sense – we probably don’t know what your ‘god-given’ name IS. but in a legal sense – the name on your birth certificate ISN’T j.j. either…
as the periods you use are clearly showing an abbreviation. …

that being said – i agree with form validation non-sense.

have a good day

Ringback Tones  on September 11th, 2008

Hit this right on the nose. Just a really easy way to lose new users or customers. You’ve got me reviewing all of my clients form validation scripts to make sure I’m not guilty of this myself.

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