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What if you need to call out to a third party API like a payment system which requires a first name and a surname? If you've not collected those things, you're
by mike-cardwell 13y ago
What if you need to call out to a third party API like a payment system which requires a first name and a surname? If you've not collected those things, you're screwed.
- grey-area 13y agoBilling names are a separate problem from user names. If you're collecting for payment, obviously you have to conform to whatever your API requires, but often it's better to keep billing details separately. Sorting is another area where it'll vary a lot depending on locale (perhaps you want to sort on last name for example, or not depending on your users) - it might be best to try to guess that from whatever they enter, rather than imposing a structure on them. Personally I'd choose the simplest solution which works, so no last name/first name, just a name field for display, depending on the requirements, a website/app might need to collect more of course, but for most websites there's no reason to try to control user names or split them up into arbitrary first/last pairs.