Message to GEICO: Usability First Please
Posted in Design
Seriously, GEICO, how difficult is it to write a regex to accept a policy number exactly as you print it without resorting to the lame “do not include dashes”?
Hang on, lemme help you: \d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}-\d{2}|\d{10}. Now you can go both ways.
This ain’t about the length of your database field. I couldn’t care less. It’s about improving usability.
You’re welcome. ;)
3 comments
Milan Negovan
on June 17, 2009
Yep, hence my comment about the length of their database field. :)
It really doesn't matter to me what they do with the user input as long as they don't allow implementation details to leak. Which, in this case, they did.
Chris Lienert
on June 17, 2009
Sites like this just scream "I'm a bad developer". Always all the more annoying for knowing that it could work properly with just a little effort.
Carl
on June 17, 2009
Your solution may not work because I'm guessing they've limited the input field to ten characters. If folks include dashes, then the user input won't fit into the textbox. :-)