Anyways, all the points seems good.

Nice post Justin

Justin Palmer

This may be the Number One reason form are left unfilled – developer/codetalkers simply don’t get that a 12-digit alphanumeric batch with special characters thrown in simply isn’t what we “general publica” think of as a password. Additionally, when we “break” the form by putting in a code or a character that the form can not feed on, more often than not, the error code is ridiculously unhelpful and, worse, dysfunctional.

Bottom Line?

If you are going to require a passcode that has all these difficult elements, good SEO and user experience requires that you do these four things:
#1
Explain the error to the user so that we can make the changes necessary in one step – making me riddle it out over 4-10 submissions simply isn’t a formula for success.
#2
Remember, the error I put in a field might be at the top of the page – have the courtesy to have the cursor take me back to the first of the offending areas – or highlight the fields that bother the internal brain of the form – again, don’t make me riddle it out – it’s your form.
#3
If you need things to be more secure and require special characters to promote healthy strong password compliance – tell me that before I start and give me a suggestion for what I might use – e.g., “youruSualpaSSword+@”. Tell me what you need.
#4
If you don’t need the password until the end, then make the forms and the process allow for as much openness as possible. Login means that I have to stop exploring – it makes me “feel” inside – or it makes me want to go to a site where they invite me in more as a guest and don’t require me to be their BFF on the first date. It’s psychology, but it works.

Thanks for listening.

SB

Love #11 as it’s a huge petpeeve of mine as well. Users that are used to being more productive by using keyboard shortcuts shouldn’t be penalized simply because table layouts are not done correctly. Kudos!