Forms - Do you indicate which fields are required and validate them?
Last updated by Brady Stroud [SSW] 8 months ago.See historyAlways indicate which fields are required. Users get frustrated when they experience a wasted trip to the server, just because they did not get an obvious indication of what was required first time around.
A designer will know the best way to indicate required field depending on the layout. However if you are in doubt and don’t have a designer around, a red asterisk is definitely the best option.
More information on ASP.NET implementation
You should combine these visual indicators with appropriate client and server side validators to make sure that your data conforms to business requirements. Adding a RequiredFieldValidator to the above textboxes gives you data validity check with minimal coding.
<asp:Textbox runat="Server" ID="email" />Figure: Bad example - No validator used, so the user won't know the email is required
<asp:Textbox runat="Server" ID="email"/>
<asp:RequiredFieldValidator runat="Server" ControlToValidate="email" ErrorMessage="Please enter an email address"
ID="emailReqValidator" />Figure: Good example - An ASP.NET validator in use, to indicate the fields required
Note: For ASP.NET Dynamic Data although validation is done differently (under the covers it is using a field template + the ASP.NET validator).
