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We at Thumbtack use a similarly simple form, and our chargeback rates are very small [although admittedly we aren't a particularly attractive candidate for frau
by birken 14y ago
We at Thumbtack use a similarly simple form, and our chargeback rates are very small [although admittedly we aren't a particularly attractive candidate for fraud]. We also did see both conversion increases and frustration decreases when we switched to a simpler payment form.
We do have one difference though (which I would call a simplication): For the expiration date, we just have input boxes for the person to enter it instead of a dropdown. Select boxes are great if a) You can pick a sane default and b) you don't have many options. For a CC form, both of these fail. You cannot set the default with anything better than random accuracy, and each box probably has at least 10 options. Additionally, the expiration date box says "2 - February". I have a lot of credit cards, and none of them say the name of the month on it, only the number. Why waste the space?
The user just typed in their 16-digit credit card number, just pop them right into the expiration date input boxes for them to type in their month and year free-form. Don't make them put the credit card down, pick up the mouse, then have to navigate select boxes with tiny print.
- pixl97 14y ago>I have a lot of credit cards, and none of them say the name of the month on it, only the number. Why waste the space? Use a lot (more then your sample size) of different credit cards and you'll see some only have 'FEB' or others 'February' and no numerical month at all. Others have the year as '14' or '2014'. It would have been better if the card issuers decided on a standard quite some time ago.
- tikhonj 14y agoThat strengthens the case for having the user type in the value rather than using a drop-down menu. That way you can do the heavy lifting of normalizing the format rather than forcing the user to do it in their head. This might seem really petty, but I'm always a little annoyed when I have to mentally convert the number on my credit card into a month. It always takes a moment to remember that 04 is March, or whatever. It's much easier just to type the value.
- jacalata 14y ago04 is April. Way to prove your point :)
- bitserf 14y agoNot just you, I've yet to have a card with a non numeric month. Instead of being friendly, putting month name is a usability loss. Are cards with names instead of numbers the majority in the US?
- eropple 14y agoAFAIK no Visa or MasterCard uses names, so almost certainly not.
- pixl97 14y agoError control and backend processing failures. When the user types 'Juny' did he mean June or July. The longer drop down option of '07 - JULY' shows all the combinations that I've seen printed on cards with the least potential of failure. I do believe your reply has validated my point with the error it contains.
- ComputerGuru 14y agoLook at our checkout form on http://systemdiscs.com/ http://systemdiscs.com/ In the expiry drop-down, we have all possible permutations: 1, 2, 3, ... 12; 01, 02, 03, ... 12; jan, feb, dec and for the year 13, 14, ... 22 and 2013, 2014, ... 2022 Basically, I addressed my own pet peeve of never knowing what format the drop-down contents would be in and therefore never being able to select it via the keyboard correctly. What I would really like would be some way of having all those permutations, but when the user actually clicks the drop-down (instead of keying in the stub) only one of those sets is displayed.
- bjterry 14y agoPresumably you could use a mouseover/click/touch handler to swap out the dropdown options before the person sees the options. The handler could even consolidate the options if someone had already selected it.
- damncabbage 14y agoDoesn't work with iOS; hitting Next on the popup keyboard immediately jumps without giving the chance for the select's change event to fire. (Bad first-hand experience looking for work-arounds.)
- csours 14y agoI live in Texas. To select my state, I usually hit tt to select the second T state. Also, if I type Tex and then click on the next field, it just drops my selection. Not trying to kvetch, just feedback =p