It depends on the purpose. Here you say it’s just so you can call them by their name properly, so just use a single text field “What name would you like us to address you as?”. If there’s legal or other issues that might not be good enough.
Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?
11–20 of 527 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?
#12Seems more of a stackoverflow question?
But:
https://github.com/kamranahmedse/design-patterns-for-humans#...
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/datatype-enum.html
I'd have multiple classes handling each one a use-case, and a enum on user's record in order to specify which class to use for each, so that you can compute it from the nationality, but you could also potentially give each user the chance to set it for themselves
Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?
#13Here's CLDR work on that: https://cldr.unicode.org/translation/miscellaneous-person-na...
Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?
#14Definitely read https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-... if you haven't yet.
Then think about what are the requirements your system needs when it comes to names.
Does the app need to know what a user's name is at all or is a username enough? Does it need to distinguish the family part of their name for anything?
A thing I think is the most general is to just have a Full Name field (min length 1 and either John Doe or something cute as default) And a Nickname or Display Name field if your app needs to show something on screen.
Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?
#15Could you just have a single field for name and allow anything in that field? The only downside is you can't do something like "Hi ${FIRST_NAME}" in your emails, but the upside is that it basically handles any name or name order, e.g. Indonesian single names, Spanish names with the mother's surname included, etc.
Re: hi {first name}, I’ve had pretty good luck with a name field and then a “nickname” field that explicitly asks, “how would you like us to greet you?”
Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?
#16You have two fields: full name and the name you want to be addressed by (e.g. in an email). This should cover the requirements of 99% of apps. You can add another field if really needed.
> the name you want to be addressed by (e.g. in an email)
In fact, I don't want my full name to be addressed anywhere at all. Just call me by the alias I provided.
Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?
#17Use a single text field for the full name.
I would not do this. For reasons of respect, you may need to address a person by either their first or last name (with a title).
Addressing a person by their full name can come across as rude (I personally find it rude too, e.g. "Hey John R. Brown, this is your order"), so it's useful to split up "given name" and "family name" into 2 fields so that you don't have to depend on name ordering which varies by culture.
If they only have one name, like many people in Myanmar, then it's just the given name. If they don't have family names (some cultures use patronymics) then it's just a long given name. If they have double-barreled last names like Hispanic names, then it's just a long family name.
Most people in the world have filled out forms on U.S. sites. They'll know what to do.
Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?
#18Fun fact: some cultures only have one name, i.e. no first or last name.
Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?
#19Seems more of a stackoverflow question? But: https://github.com/kamranahmedse/design-patterns-for-humans#... https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/datatype-enum.html I'd have multiple classes handling each one a use-case, and a enum on user's record in order to specify which class to use for each, so that you can compute it from the nationality, but you could also potentially give each user the chance to set it for…
Is it really worth using enum in postgres over a plain string, and optionally a check constraint if you're super concerned about strictness?
Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?
#20Could you just have a single field for name and allow anything in that field? The only downside is you can't do something like "Hi ${FIRST_NAME}" in your emails, but the upside is that it basically handles any name or name order, e.g. Indonesian single names, Spanish names with the mother's surname included, etc.
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