My gripe with ecommerce forms

It’s not hard to do it right

I’m a user of e-commerce web sites and also a software developer. There are some things about web data entry forms that really bother me.

Credit card number: The card has spaces in the number string to make it more readable. If I dare to enter the spaces along with the numbers, don’t tell me “invalid credit card number”! Take the spaces out if you don’t want them. Same with hyphens. This is not rocket science.

Don’t demand that I tell you the card type. Figure it out from the card number prefix. And if you default the card type to Visa and I type in a Master Card number without changing the type selection, don’t tell me “invalid card number.” Figure it out.

My name on my credit cards includes my middle initial. When you ask me for the name of the card holder and I type in my middle initial with a period after it, don’t tell me “invalid data.” Take the period out if you don’t like it.

If I copy/paste a number that accidentally includes leading or trailing space, strip the space for me.

If you ask me for a money amount and I copy/paste or type the currency symbol, take it out if you don’t want it.

And don’t tell me 12.3 is an invalid money amount and insist that I type 12.30 !

I could go on, but you get the idea.