I was reading some articles about validation routines in Flex (as part of a book I’m writing on Flex + PHP), when I came across a particular article that’s part of the Adobe Developer Connection. The specifics of the article revolve around validation in Flex, of course, but I thought that the section on “Best Practices for Client-Side Validation” would be good reading for any one doing user interface. There are four suggestions there, all on how an application should treat the user. Those suggestions are:
- Prevent, Don’t Scold
- Give Immediate Feedback
- Let the User Work
- Innocent Until Proven Guilty
The first rule ties in nicely to a post I just wrote on putting the user in a place where they can succeed. I don’t want to waste time here re-iterating what’s said there, but give it a read—at least that part about best practices—and keep that perspective in mind the next time you go to design a user interface.
