From: Abigail Date: 22:10 on 28 Apr 2004 Subject: Registration webforms I really hate webforms with 'required' fields, typically used for registration of some kind. They insist on getting all kinds of information from you - that they don't really need to know - and they just can't cope with the fact that sometimes, there just isn't a good value to put in. Take for instance the registration form for YAPC::NA. It assumes everyone has a first and a last name, and just can't deal with the fact not everyone has one. It's the "whole world is a VAX" all over again. Abigail
From: Shane Landrum Date: 22:26 on 28 Apr 2004 Subject: Re: Registration webforms On Wed, Apr 28, 2004 at 11:10:26PM +0200, Abigail (abigail@xxxxxxx.xx) wrote: > > I really hate webforms with 'required' fields, typically used for > registration of some kind. They insist on getting all kinds of > information from you - that they don't really need to know - and > they just can't cope with the fact that sometimes, there just isn't > a good value to put in. I've been fighting this battle for years with web-forms that want to know my gender. They put radio buttons or selectboxes with only 2 options, or a "not specified" if I'm lucky. I hate that. Customer service drones at companies all over the net have done the equivalent of pat my head and say "that's too bad, dear" when I've written to complain. srl, mu-gendered.
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 22:55 on 28 Apr 2004 Subject: Re: Registration webforms I have a space in my last name. 'nuff said.
From: Jarkko Hietaniemi Date: 23:24 on 28 Apr 2004 Subject: Re: Registration webforms Peter da Silva wrote: > I have a space in my last name. > > 'nuff said. I have a colleague who has _no_ last name. And only one "first name". (*) He must have heaps of fun with web forms. (*) Tamil, in case you wonder.
From: Yoz Grahame Date: 02:42 on 29 Apr 2004 Subject: Re: Registration webforms On Wed, 28 Apr 2004 16:55:32 -0500 (CDT), Peter da Silva <peter@xxxxxxx.xxx> wrote: > > I have a space in my last name. > > 'nuff said. Danny O'Brien wrote a thing once about how his name is great for showing up code that just chucks its vars at SQL without cleaning it first. -- Yoz
From: mjinks Date: 23:27 on 28 Apr 2004 Subject: Re: Registration webforms On Wed, Apr 28, 2004 at 11:10:26PM +0200, Abigail wrote: > > Take for instance the registration form for YAPC::NA. It assumes > everyone has a first and a last name, and just can't deal with the > fact not everyone has one. This sort of thinking far predates web forms. Once upon a time there was a woman with no last name who had a daughter, and was compelled to fill out a form with both a first and last name, and this is why I now have a friend whose legal name is "Nancy Blank".
From: Jonathan Stowe
Date: 09:41 on 29 Apr 2004
Subject: Re: Registration webforms
On Wed, 2004-04-28 at 23:27, mjinks@xxxxxxxx.xxx wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 28, 2004 at 11:10:26PM +0200, Abigail wrote:
> >
> > Take for instance the registration form for YAPC::NA. It assumes
> > everyone has a first and a last name, and just can't deal with the
> > fact not everyone has one.
>
> This sort of thinking far predates web forms. Once upon a time there
> was a woman with no last name who had a daughter, and was compelled to
> fill out a form with both a first and last name, and this is why I now
> have a friend whose legal name is "Nancy Blank".
I have found this particularly prevalent with name prefixes or titles or
whatever you might want to call them - most software that requires a
name will also require an input ('Mr', 'Mme', 'Herr' or whatever) in the
title field but there seem to be a reasonably large number of people who
reject the use of such titles and get quite exercised if they receive a
communication of some sort with one on. A number of years ago I had to
adapt a document produced by a housing software when a tenant objected
strenuously to being styled with a '.' as a title.
Of course this situation is often compounded when you can only choose
from a drop down or similar.
From: Stephen Gower Date: 16:20 on 29 Apr 2004 Subject: Re: Registration webforms On Thu, Apr 29, 2004 at 09:41:07AM +0100, Jonathan Stowe wrote: > > On Wed, Apr 28, 2004 at 11:10:26PM +0200, Abigail wrote: > > > > > > Take for instance the registration form for YAPC::NA. It assumes > > > everyone has a first and a last name, and just can't deal with the > > > fact not everyone has one. > > I have found this particularly prevalent with name prefixes or titles or > whatever you might want to call them That's because programmers and database designers think there are simple rules to this sort of thing, even though the rules are anything but simple, even without people who are exceptions to the rules. For example, Sir John Smith is "Sir John" in situations where Mr Fred Jones is simply "Fred". Simplifying your database to include title, firstname and lastname is oversimplification, and you end up with workarounds like we have here where "Sir John" is in the title field and there is a null value for the firstname. http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/articles/f/video_clips_ram/fawltytowers_7772600_3.ram seems relevant. And if not relevant, it can at least take our minds off hateful softeware. s
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 16:34 on 29 Apr 2004 Subject: > That's because programmers and database designers think there are > simple rules to this sort of thing, even though the rules are > anything but simple, even without people who are exceptions to the > rules. For example, Sir John Smith is "Sir John" in situations > where Mr Fred Jones is simply "Fred". Simplifying your database to > include title, firstname and lastname is oversimplification, and > you end up with workarounds like we have here where "Sir John" is > in the title field and there is a null value for the firstname. You really need to have a separate field for "personal name", for cases like this, and people like Maddog who go by nicknames or stage names.
From: Thomas R. Sibley Date: 00:42 on 29 Apr 2004 Subject: Re: Registration webforms Abigail wrote on 04/28/04 17:10: > I really hate webforms ... ...that do email address checking completely wrong. Usually it means I can't use an email address where the localpart has a + (plus) or a . (dot), which irks me beyond end. Tom
From: Abigail Date: 01:06 on 29 Apr 2004 Subject: Re: Registration webforms On Wed, Apr 28, 2004 at 07:42:50PM -0400, Thomas R. Sibley wrote: > Abigail wrote on 04/28/04 17:10: > >I really hate webforms ... > > ...that do email address checking completely wrong. Usually it means I > can't use an email address where the localpart has a + (plus) or a . > (dot), which irks me beyond end. Ah, yes. I remember a site where I used an email address of the form '$site-name$@xxxxxxx.xx'. They send me an email, where the email has 'site-name@xxxxxxx.xx' in the 'To:' header. But the envelop to was '$site-name@xxxxxxx.xx'. Of course, that bounced. It bounced to 'info@xxxxxxxxx.xxx', conforming the headers in the email. That address didn't exist, so it bounced back to my site. Where the email finally did end up in my mailbox, as I'm postmaster. The content of the email was the biggest surprise. That mentioned the email address I had given. Correctly. How they managed to write code that extracts three different, of which two invalid ones, email addresses from the one given is something I still have problems believing. Abigail
From: Ann Barcomb Date: 07:26 on 29 Apr 2004 Subject: Re: Registration webforms I'm not too fond of most webforms either, although I've made plenty of them. Most of the time it is the specifications which cause the resulting form to suck. I guess YAPC NA doesn't have that excuse, however. Recently I was reading a company's site and I wanted to send them a mail to comment on one of their products. There was no email address, just a webform. One of the questions that required an answer was my birthday. This had nothing whatsoever to do with my comment. I complained about this in my post (after filling in a birthday of 1-1-01) and to their credit they answered it, citing some odd American law that seemed to be trying to protect children from giving their opinions (I was trying to comment on _ice_cream_). I guess "you must be 18 to click this button" is no longer a legal defense; people discovered children could click those buttons, but of course they can't fill in fake years of birth. So although I'd like to complain about this idiotic form (which didn't even block my comment even though as far as it can see I'm only 3 years old), it seems it is the rabid "protect our children" lobby that is really to blame.
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