[Sigia-l] Link to Search Field Labels

[Listera]

"Alfonso Corretti" wrote:

>> The real trick of course, is to design the darn thing so that the user needs
>> no tips.:-)
> 
> Sure, and forgetting all client needs of reuse, dynamism,
> auto-generation, self-discovery, context-drived contents...

I'm not sure what all this refers to, but what I was saying above is a
pedestrian acknowledgement that there are many ways to unburden the user
from having to look at tips/instructions. Few common ones:

Dates -- Instead of explaining the precise format the user must use to enter
dates, format them server side, whenever you can. Or use popups for them to
select.

Numbers -- Instead of asking users to rigidly follow number patterns for
phone, credit card, Social Security numbers, etc., let them enter it anyway
they want, format them server side, whenever you can.

Area codes -- (One of my pet peeves) Instead of asking users to only use
spaces, commas, slashes, etc to separate phone area codes in a text field,
format them server side, whenever you can, they are always XXX.

Names -- Instead of asking users to spell out country, state or other types
of items, put them in a popup for selection if the list is finite and small.

Auto configure -- Instead of asking users to thinking through their choices
when using multiple nested lists, auto configure downstream lists on-the-fly
so that the user is given progressively narrowing choices, whenever
possible.

Subscription numbers -- (Another one of my pet peeves) When renewing print
subscriptions online, instead of instructing users to look at their mailing
label and select the first 10 digits but not the alphanumerics or the
numbers after the # sign, etc, process the darn thing server-side.

Etc.

The point is that a lot of the tips/instructions I see complicate users'
life whereas a bit of server and/or client side processing would free them
from the rigidity of form filling.

Ziya
Nullius in Verba