Another webpage design to judge

[Fumigator]

What do you think about this color scheme and design?

http://troyyates.com/flatfee_test/registerstep1.php

Also would love feedback on how the form validation works-- is it intuitive?

[_Aerospace_Eng_]

You never responded to the other site review thread so how do we know you don't do the same in this one?

[jerry62704]

In IE6:
Pricing information & Buyer's Agent line up funny. (I understand the "$" and "%", but can they be put in the field as replaceable defaults?

Several places the label takes two lines.

Secondary Phone is lighter than Primary - does this indicate it is optional? (Ditto Seller's Title)

Coordinate radio boxes on multiple lines - is that what you wanted?

Buttons on bottom has one below rest.

It looks goofy to me to have the input area so cramped compared to the "menu" on the left.

That being said, I like it. The color info boxes on the right are very good. You might want to limit the Buyer's Agent size as I doubt anyone would take an agent with a 100000% commission.

[Apostropartheid]

The boldness thing looks intuative to me: I got it instantly. But I would like to see the typical red or green mark (I like to use the section mark, §) to indicate them too

[jerry62704]

I ask myself what what my wife do on this page. She wouldn't make the connection between optional/manditory via light/bold text. Most sites use a footnote (*) to indicate required fields.

[Apostropartheid]

But it's not a footnote. Notably, it's not a section, either, but generally anything colored red would be associated with required, no?

[Andrew Johnson]

Asterisks (usually red, but not always) have become the standard for required fields.

I can't think of the name of the web design law, but it goes something like "people spend most of their time on other websites, they want to use something they're familiar with" - in other words, stick with web standards (W3 designated and otherwise) to make things easiest for your users.

[nolvorite]

Try adding a border on the stepbox when I hover it (anchor).

[Fumigator]

You never responded to the other site review thread so how do we know you don't do the same in this one?

You never know.. But yeah, oops sorry, I'll make a point to respond to that other review. It was a case where I pretty much agreed with everything people said, but I did intend to reply to say as much.

Anyways....

Pricing information & Buyer's Agent line up funny. (I understand the "$" and "%", but can they be put in the field as replaceable defaults?

I'll try putting the $ and % inside the field as default, it's a good idea. Thinking about it, the dollar sign doesn't even need to be there, it's obvious that the asking price is going to be a dollar amount. And I could add clarification that the commission box should be a percentage in the help text.

Several places the label takes two lines.

I'm not sure why that's a problem..? It's still clear which label goes with which input box. Because it's a fixed width layout, I don't have a lot of room to expand the label area, but I'll see if I can stretch it a bit.

Secondary Phone is lighter than Primary - does this indicate it is optional? (Ditto Seller's Title)

Good point-- It's not overtly obvious as-is-- I'll add asterisks.

Coordinate radio boxes on multiple lines - is that what you wanted?

I'm afraid I don't follow. Are you talking about the north/south and east/west radios? They are horizontally grouped-- is that confusing?

Buttons on bottom has one below rest.

Grr, I had a bit of trouble with that, but on my IE6 and FF2 all three buttons are aligned properly. I wonder why your IE6 drops one down?

It looks goofy to me to have the input area so cramped compared to the "menu" on the left.

Would more margin between each input label/box help that cramped goofiness?

You might want to limit the Buyer's Agent size as I doubt anyone would take an agent with a 100000% commission.

Good catch-- will fix.

(from nolvorite)

Try adding a border on the stepbox when I hover it (anchor).

You're right, I should do that. It will look more natural.

Thanks for the feeback!

[abduraooft]

Are you saving the errors in session? I got "There are 17 errors on this step. Please correct before continuing.", when I reopened the window.

[oesxyl]

Originally Posted by Fumigator

What do you think about this color scheme and design?

http://troyyates.com/flatfee_test/registerstep1.php

Also would love feedback on how the form validation works-- is it intuitive?

sorry, few problems:
- I want to help you to check form validation but are to many fields, that make me wander if a user have the patience to fill all this fields, in my opinion the answer is no and as long as your interest is to have as many user you can have and they could go to another site, I think you lose. Must be reworked.
- primary phone number = 1, must work?
- maybe I exagerate but: First Name: pharma, Last Name: viagra, Middle Name: cialis, seems to work

I don't go further for two reason, first point in above list and second because I think will be easy to automate the test of field validation.

I wait to know if you are interested about second and what you intend to do with first, and then post some details about that.

best regards

[Fumigator]

Are you saving the errors in session? I got "There are 17 errors on this step. Please correct before continuing.", when I reopened the window.

Yes, but the session should expire when you close your browser.

- I want to help you to check form validation but are to many fields, that make me wander if a user have the patience to fill all this fields, in my opinion the answer is no and as long as your interest is to have as many user you can have and they could go to another site, I think you lose. Must be reworked.

Client requirements, I can't do anything about that. I split it into different pages just to try to keep people engaged, as one large form would be far too taxing. At least with more than one page the user can get a sense of progress.

Most all of my client's customers will know what they're getting into and will be willing to commit 15 minutes to filling in the entire form. They are trying to sell their house, after all. This level of detail is necessary.

- primary phone number = 1, must work?
- maybe I exagerate but: First Name: pharma, Last Name: viagra, Middle Name: cialis, seems to work

I have some light validation on the form values which I think is good enough. How would I know that someone's name isn't Pharma C. Viagra? I don't know. I think when the automated spambot gets to the part where they have to pay $250, they'll probably give up

Thanks for the input!

[oesxyl]

Originally Posted by Fumigator

Client requirements, I can't do anything about that. I split it into different pages just to try to keep people engaged, as one large form would be far too taxing. At least with more than one page the user can get a sense of progress.

Most all of my client's customers will know what they're getting into and will be willing to commit 15 minutes to filling in the entire form. They are trying to sell their house, after all. This level of detail is necessary.

1. I have a real estate site too and same problem, I know that all the fields are really necessary
2. about marked area, why here and not on another site? that was the question for my self, in fact your client work for money,

Solution I guess could work also for you:
1. first step, visible for user. A minimal set of data that could help your client to decide if the user have a real offer and the contact data.
2. second step, invisible for the user. Send a automate mail or else to your client. This way it can decide to contact, simple ignore the user or mark it as spam/abuse.
3. third step. Your client send a automate mail to the client with the rest of the fields by pushing a button, replay or else. You can add some stuff to this so that your client could put additional question unpredicted in the moment you and your client build this form.

this will increase the costs with a little procent but also the quality of the service and trust me, both the client and the user will apreciate that,

I have some light validation on the form values which I think is good enough. How would I know that someone's name isn't Pharma C. Viagra? I don't know. I think when the automated spambot gets to the part where they have to pay $250, they'll probably give up

Thanks for the input!

maybe is not necessarely, I usualy prvent some stuff to make more simple later to implement.
This time I was thinking to a sistem to prevent spam and abuse, such as validate some fields based on a database with names, mail address, ...

best regards

[Fumigator]

The effort a user would go through to have to receive an email and then come back to a form to finish entering the details, to me, would further complicate the user experience, thus exaserbating the very problem you tried to solve/reduce. Also, an intermediate step requiring my client's attention (to accept or reject form submissions) would actually force my client to sort through the spam and abuse, rather than protect him from it.

Sorry, I just don't agree with you here-- there is not going to be a problem with spam and abuse, because spammers and abusers won't complete the payment process, and my client will only see those the forms submitted by those people who complete the payment process.

[jerry62704]

One problem is that IE - even the same version - behaves differently on different machines. I doubt anyone can have all the flavors of all the versions which is why you (and I) ask questions here so a wider audience can catch different things. Some of which are to be ignored due to time constraints and such.

The radio boxes on different lines is a problem and yes I was refering to the n/s e/w things.