Posted by Peter Fox on 06/25/05 10:21

Following on from Daniel Tryba's message. . .
>Geoff Berrow <blthecat@ckdog.co.uk> wrote:
>>>My problem though is if form
>>>validation fails on "page 2.php" (where the form data was submitted and
>>>the validation performed), how do I return the user to "page1.php" to
>>>try again?
>>
>> You could always tell them to press the back button.
>
>How very userfriendly. Server decides that something is wrong and that
>the user should fix it by themselves by backing up a few pages. Some
>problems it cause:
>-what was wrong again?
>-password fields tend to be empty in some browsers (good thing (tm))
>-other fields may be reset to defaults (eg. select)
>
Quite agree 90% of time, as if there is _no decision_ to be made by the
user except to type in the damn thing correctly then the suitable page
should be displayed automatically there and then with _informative,
unambiguous and well-positioned error message_.

However there are situations where the 'error' is not a matter of sloppy
input but logic known to the system only. For example : "You have
ordered two sweets but no main course do you really want to do this?".
In this case 'back' is a logical option in the minds of some users. I
would _not_ expect or encourage users to use Back (or forward) buttons
and therefore provide proper yes and no buttons on the screen to do this
*but* some users will use the Back button regardless and so your screen
logic needs to be able to cope with this 'mis-use'.




--
PETER FOX Not the same since the bottom fell out of the bucket business
peterfox@eminent.demon.co.uk.not.this.bit.no.html
2 Tees Close, Witham, Essex.
Gravity beer in Essex <http://www.eminent.demon.co.uk>

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