Why Is Bulletproof Form Validation Crucial?

March 3, 2016

What makes form validation so important

With the release of the HTML5 Form Validator we've been talking a lot about form validation these last days, but why is it so important? Well, form validation is crucial for your website security and a good user experience. Also, not any less important, if implemented right it saves you and your users a lot of time and trouble.

The Story

So what is form validation? Simply said, it's all about making sure your user correctly fills in a form on your website and showing them they succeeded. It is necessary to have this right, because you don't want people filling in the wrong data, whether that's on purpose or by accident. An example is your customer filling in the wrong credit card number during the checkout process.

Why is good validation of such great importance?

The two most important things are the security of your website and the experience of the user. Good form validation is crucial because it prevents web abuse. Unfortunately web forms can frequently be targeted by attackers and if you don't make sure you have your validation right, you are risking the security of your website. Now when you have to hand code the form validation yourself, it's easy to make a small mistake.

The second thing is your user experience. So how can good form validation improve your website's user experience:

It avoids confusion

Because what you really want is to make your user's visit on your website as clear and easy as possible. Nowadays users have high expectations and already decide within seconds if your website is worth their time.It makes sure important customer relation moments are finished well.

The moments where form validation is necessary, are crucial for your company

These moments are the seconds that you can either pull your user in as a registered user, buyer or newsletter member or lose them completely. If a user is having a lot of trouble filling in a form on your website, this might cause them to just leave your site. Proper designed form validation is important here.

It speeds things up

No visitor wants to be stuck filling in a form for too long. Good validationhelps speed things up. One of the things that really help here is real-time/instant field validation, which is also one of the many benefits of the HTML5 Form Validator. It alerts the user immediately when something goes wrong, which saves them time while filling in the fields.

It makes things easier for yourself and your users

You are basically taking the user by the hand and making sure he provides you with the right information. That is why it is also important to not only show the customer when he has inserted something wrong, but also show him when he has filled in something right.

Form validation sounds like a very simple process, which it also is, if developed properly. Here is where our HTML5 Form Validator comes in place.

The main benefits of the new HTML5 Form Validator

No hand coding needed

Creating the form validation is now completely visually done and this just makes things so much easier and faster. Without it you would have to hand code the validation rules all by yourself, which can cost you a lot of time. With this extension you can now just apply the form validation without a single line of code.

You can add unlimited rules to a single field

For example if you have a field where the user can fill in their name you wouldn't want people to use numbers or special characters (@#$%^*) and you'd like to add a minimum length of characters.

 

Real-time validation

When it comes to form validation, there are a lot of adjustments you can make. Real-time means the actual time during which something takes place. So looking at form validation, it means while the user is filling in the fields. You have forms where the user finds out what he has done wrong, only after clicking the submit button. This will cost the user more time, than when he would see his mistakes right away. So especially for user experience this is a great benefit of our design.

 Twitter shows a good example of real-time validation and helpful hints

Personal adjustment

The warning message your user gets when he/she fills in something wrong can be completely adjusted by yourself. This way you can adapt your form to the way you communicate towards your users on the rest of your website.

The use of clear colors and icons

Colors and icons are easily recognizable. Anyone can recognize the green colour and a check mark as a sign of approval. The same way people recognize a red colour and a mark as a warning that something went wrong. With the HTML5 Form Validator this style is built in your form validation already with Bootstrap 3.

 

Full server side validation

Most of the things mentioned are client side, but there's one really strong point we definitely want to mention regarding server side. As said before, form validationhelps you secure your website, but with our DMXzone Server Connect we give you double protection. A powerful and strong server side validation is automatically added. This way we want to make sure that even if certain attacks bypass the client side validation, the data on your server is always validated.

Whether it's for a registration form or a form in your checkout process, make sure your validation is on point. Not only will you increase the security of your website, but it will also benefit your users experience. The HTML5 Form Validator helps you achieve this easily without losing a lot of time. So if you are in need of proper form validation for your website, go check out the HTML5 Form Validator.

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Ena Zijadic

Ena has been focused on DMXzone's Marketing & Communication in 2015 and 2016 . She has played a role in the maintenance of our own website, social media, and managing the overall marketing for DMXzone.

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