There is one question I get asked frequently enough that it warrants its own blog entry.
Someone tries a validation script that looks like this:
this.rawValue !== null;
But the validation never fails. In spite of the fact that the field is null, this field always reports back that it is valid.
The reason is because of this rule: "empty/null fields never fail a script validation". The reason behind the rule is that we want to allow designers to define validations without worrying about null as a special case. Take an example: the user needs to enter a value in a ‘Age’ field where the value must be greater than 18. The way to express this is with this validation on the Age field:
this.rawValue > 18;
In an empty field this evaluates as "null > 18;" — which evaluates to false. Until the user enters a value, this validation script will always return false.
But allowing a script validation to fail on an empty field would be a lousy user experience. As soon as they open a blank form they would get a pile of invalid fields — even before beginning to enter data. What should a form designer do? They could change their script to explicitly allow null:
(this.rawValue === null) || (this.rawValue > 18);
But now there’s the problem that we really do want to make sure they enter a value. i.e. the experience we want is that the field starts out in a valid state. Don’t complain about script validations until they’ve actually entered a value in the field — but also don’t let them submit their data until the field has been populated with a value!
Of course, the answer is to make the field mandatory (the null test validation). By making the Age field mandatory we know that the user will not be hassled as soon as they open the form; but they also won’t be allowed to submit until they’ve provided a value. And the form author doesn’t have to handle a null value as a special case.
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Gone Again
I see Merriam-Webster has added "Staycation" to their dictionary. Sounds good to me. I will be away for another week at the family cottage. I’ll be be back to respond to comments on the 27th or 28th.
