Two very minor cognitive-accessibility things on the credit card page

[codeman38]

On the page to enter credit card details for an order, I noticed two small issues that one might consider issues of cognitive accessibility, that seem like they could easily be fixed:

1. Somewhat related to Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names, the way the name fields are set up doesn't actually match the format it's in on my credit card. The name embossed on my credit card is in the form "John Q Public" (though with my real name, of course), and I'm never quite sure how to enter it on forms that have only a First Name and Last Name field; usually I end up entering "John Q" in the first name field. Unless your payment processor actually requires the name to be separated into first and last, it'd make much more sense to just have a single "name as listed on account" field, in my opinion.

2. My brain sometimes has a hard time remembering what numbers go with what month names. (This is not helped by the fact that the months were named when the year still started in March, so all the Latin root words are off by two!) My credit card lists its expiration date as 07/14, and so on any form where the months are listed by name rather than number, I have to scroll down line by line and count to make sure I have the right month. It seems like it'd make just as much sense to have the months listed as "01 - January", "02 - February", etc.; this is how I've seen it done on a number of other e-commerce sites.

Comments

[jumpuphigh]

I like both of these!

I wonder if it would make sense to post this to suggestions in addition to here.

[jumpuphigh]

P.S. I love your icon!

[denise]

1) Unfortunately, yes, our processor does require names be sent in that fashion. It annoys me and causes no end of problems for some people who have multiple "first" or "last" names, trying to figure out how their bank has it in their system (I know someone who has two 'first' and three 'last' names, and she's always trying to figure out which have been shunted into the 'middle' name field). I wish we could fix it. :/

2) A very good suggestion, and I've opened a bug for it!

[jeshyr]

I'm working on the bug to add the month numbers to the month names!

(I'm new to development so this is ver exciting for me :))

[deborah]

one warning about how some sites implement the month numbers/month namespace which drives me up the wall: make sure that what people see in the drop-down list is actually how it sorts. For example, sometimes the displayed text is "January" but the text when you actually get into the drop-down begins "01-January" -- which is much more difficult from a keyboard access perspective!

Other pet peeve: when the US states are displayed with their full names but sorted alphabetically by postal abbreviation, or vice versa. This happens more often than you would think.

[jeshyr]

I'm not quite sure what you mean about the drop-down. What displays is whichever bit of the drop-down is selected so if I switch the drop down to say "01 - January" then that's what it'll say when that one is selected. Does that sound OK?

The drop-down will be the same as what's in the shop now except with the numbers tacked on the front of the names, if that helps.

If you want to catch me on AIM to explain better look for my nickname "jeshyr" :)

[treeowl]

This is actually a significant issue, not only for accessibility but also for everyone's convenience. If you were to actually follow the original suggestion of "01 - January", "02 - February", etc., then someone probably has to click into the menu and click the month, or tab into the menu and scroll down to the month, or press 0 nine times to get to September. This is the worst scenario, and it makes me miserable when I have to do similar things all the time at work (which I do). "J" for January, "F" for February, "JJ" for June, "JJJ" for July, etc., is one option; 1 for January, 2 for February, 11 for October, 111 for November, etc., is another. In either case, you need no more than 4 keystrokes to get to the month you mean, at least with many browsers. The expiration day should probably be a type-in field. Unrelatedly, when websites ask for birth years and offer drop-down menus going all the way back to 1910 and all the way up to the present (as though newborns browse the web), that tends to be much more painful than just typing the year.

[pne]

If you were to actually follow the original suggestion of "01 - January", "02 - February", etc., then someone probably has to click into the menu and click the month, or tab into the menu and scroll down to the month, or press 0 nine times to get to September.

In some browsers, pressing "09" for September may also work. Though in my experience, for that to work, the two keystrokes have to come close to one another, otherwise it thinks you're looking for something starting with "0", then changed your mind and are now looking for something starting with "9".

[codeman38]

Yeah-- in Firefox, I'm just able to type "09" and it jumps to 09.

[jeshyr]

This also works fine in Safari and Chrome, from memory. Does it not work in IE? I don't have any around to test...

[jeshyr]

Cody:

If it says "1 - January", "2 - February", etc. does it still solve the cognitive issue OK?

I don't want to create one accessibility problem while solving a different one, for obvious reasons :)

[fu]

If that doesn't work, would January - 01, February - 02, etc?

[pne]

What's the rationale for including the names in the first place?

Like the OP's, my credit card lists the expiration date in the format "07/2014", so why not *just* include the numbers? People will typically have their credit card out to type in the number, I imagine, and letting them type (or select) exactly what's on there would seem to be the obvious thing to me.

[jeshyr]

Numbers-only is a different kind of cognitive problem for some people who have trouble with numbers.

I definitely think putting both in there is a better idea.

[codeman38]

I would prefer "January - 01" over "1 - January".