When the user is inputting large numbers what can I do to reduce errors?

Question

I am making a online-survey. One of the questions is :

How much do you want to invest next year ?

The numbers can vary between 1000 - 100000€.

I provide a normal input textfield, but the problem is that if a big company inputs 10000 instead of 100000 the error is very huge.

The survey is also in paper format and it looks like this :

Is it possible to do something similar, or is there another technique I can use to minimize the chance of errors?

Related - ux.stackexchange.com/questions/22292/… - though that one only mentions overpayment. Here you are concerned with underpayment too. — ChrisF, Jun 14, 2012 at 12:40
I thought the answer on the question ChrisF mentions that you should write out the number in text below the input field was an excellent idea i.e. it would say "zero" and then update to "three thousand" (dynamically as the user types). That gives immeadiate feedback. Could be in grey very subtle. — Lisa Tweedie, Jun 14, 2012 at 12:45

vzwick · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-14 16:07:42Z

6

Option 1: "Emulating paper"

Enhance the textfield (via JS) so that the number entered is dynamically formatted with thousands and decimal separators.

This solution would be quite similar to what you have in the pen-and-paper representation, actually.

Since you mentioned that the use case in question is a survey, you'll probably be grouping results anyways, right?

So, assuming you don't really need a precise number but rather an estimate or a range, you could use:

a (range) slider – which actually would work pretty well even for precise numbers
a set of radiobuttons representing ranges [$0 - 10k], [$10k - 20k], …
a dropdown working in the same way as the radio buttons – additionally saving you some space and making the form look less extensive to the user

Personally, I would probably go with the slider. People love them :p

answered Jun 14, 2012 at 12:14

vzwick

1,2329 silver badges14 bronze badges

Slider idea is a very good one... that keeps the context of the range.
– Lisa Tweedie
Jun 14, 2012 at 12:48
The slider tied to a numeric field could also be useful (if you couldn't enhance the textfield). That way you could do precise input, but if you weren't paying attention to the zeros, the slider would alert you to the fact that you put 10x more (or less) money than you meant.
– Wayne Werner
Jun 14, 2012 at 13:37
1

For option 1, you could use a plugin like digitalbush.com/projects/masked-input-plugin to format the value with commas.
– Mike Eng
Jun 14, 2012 at 16:38

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