The "Right" Way to Style Forms
What do you think it the right way to style forms? Div's, DL/DT/DD, ordered lists? If you had to recommend a default way to mark up your forms, which approach would you recommend and why?
Handling International Address Inputs
How do you accept international address inputs? Lets say you have a site where most users are US, but some are international, where you want to maximize usability for US clients (do they REALLY need to type city and state in?!) but make it work for all users.
My first thoughts are as follows . . .
Form Validation: On-blur or On Submit?
I've noticed recently a trend towards validating fields when you leave the field, so the form will immediately let you know whether your email address was valid or your username is unique. Obviously some dependent validations can't be done in this way, but in general terms it seems like a pretty good default approach to form validation.
What do you think? Should validations be performed ASAP or should they wait for a form submission? Obviously it depends - but on what? What would move you towards including or avoiding on blur field validations?
Could Your Forms be Smarter?
Khoi Vinh just posted a really interesting article about form design. It raises some interesting questions about best practices for form design and how smart forms should be. For example, do you really need a credit card type drop down on checkout, and is it worth asking for city and state if you can infer them from the ZIP code? . . .
