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Asking for a date of birth (2013)

designnotes.blog.gov.uk

51–60 of 97 posts

Re: Asking for a date of birth (2013)

#51

Do note that their new guidelines at https://design-system.service.gov.uk/patterns/dates/#asking-... suggest using `type="text" inputmode="numeric"` instead of `type="number"`.

What does that do? Allow letters to be input in the field, but show a numeric keyboard on touchscreens? Wy would you do that?

we have a blog post on why: https://technology.blog.gov.uk/2020/02/24/why-the-gov-uk-des...

Re: Asking for a date of birth (2013)

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interface looks usually nice, but input=date is horrible to manipulate in many implementations. On iOS choosing year/month is the rolodex interface, as slow and clunky as usual, especially if you’re flipping it for 40~60 years. On android it moves month by month at most, so it’s even funnier to swipe for decades. I think the type=number alternative with validation + confirmation text with the month in letters is…

On Android you can also click on the year and it should give you a grid view of years

But how is that easier than just tapping 4 numbers?

Re: Asking for a date of birth (2013)

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interface looks usually nice, but input=date is horrible to manipulate in many implementations. On iOS choosing year/month is the rolodex interface, as slow and clunky as usual, especially if you’re flipping it for 40~60 years. On android it moves month by month at most, so it’s even funnier to swipe for decades. I think the type=number alternative with validation + confirmation text with the month in letters is…

On Android you can also click on the year and it should give you a grid view of years

Thanks, I didn’t realize the year on the corner was clickable.

On Pixel (android 12), it opens a scrolling list, temporarily replacing the calendar month/day view.

Re: Asking for a date of birth (2013)

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard a standup with a very dark joke, something to the effect of, 9/11 had a silver lining because now he could remember what number month September was.

It took me years to figure out that 9/11 was not on the 9th November. I always wondered why there was no snow on the images of the incident. Americans and their correct date system...

Well, it doesn't snow in New York in November, either.

Re: Asking for a date of birth (2013)

#56

Usually the best solution is not to ask for date of birth. I guess about one in ten of websites that ask me that actually have a legitimate reason for needing to know. (In the present case, a UK Government website might well have a legitimate reason.)

I tried to help my boss once to log onto Zoom for a meeting. The site asked for date of birth, and not wanting to give any PII I naturally entered some bullshit but plausible date. Well Zoom locked him out for some time for trying to lie I guess and that meeting had to be moved to Teams.

This is interesting. What triggered them to think this was a lie? Had your boss previously entered a different birthdate, which they remembered and then compared to?

Re: Asking for a date of birth (2013)

#57
post #5

One thing I always felt was an anti-pattern was in any input where months are numbers they don't explicitly mention in an adjacent label the name of the month. Besides the US/UK order confusion, you'd be surprised how often people think August is the 7th month of the year.

Confession: I'm nearly 40 damn years old, and I still second-guess month numbers enough that I usually just count starting from January, ticking them off on my fingers, and going through them one by one, to reach the one I need.

Re: Asking for a date of birth (2013)

#58

What really bothers me is that most of time when the date of birth is asked it is done as a way to determine some age criteria. The same could be achieved simply asking "are you older than N years old? [Yes] or [No]". For example, I want to buy Quake on the Nintendo eShop. The website wants to know my age in order to show me a age restricted game. So it will always ask me the age same question even if I have already…

> The same could be achieved simply asking "are you older than N years old? [Yes] or [No]".

The term of art seems to be "neutral age gate", and something like a checkbox to indicate you're under 13 is explicitly not OK according to FTC guidance. So where it's to comply with government regulations, this is not enough.

https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/complying-co...

Re: Asking for a date of birth (2013)

#59

What really bothers me is that most of time when the date of birth is asked it is done as a way to determine some age criteria. The same could be achieved simply asking "are you older than N years old? [Yes] or [No]". For example, I want to buy Quake on the Nintendo eShop. The website wants to know my age in order to show me a age restricted game. So it will always ask me the age same question even if I have already…

> As a small revenge I always use an absurdly old birth date on these forms. This way if they are collecting this data, my input will be discarded or pollute their datasets.

Or the micro-frauds get detected, linked to your credit card & email address, your identity, and credit rating. Before you know it, your transactions are failing fraud checks, you can't get loans, and BigTechs unilaterally cancel your accounts.

I exaggerate, but I fear we may be heading in that direction.

Re: Asking for a date of birth (2013)

#60
post #27

I've seen some US government forms use [01] [Jan] [1970] where [01]: one- or two-digit day, typed manually [Jan]: three-letter month, picked from a dropdown [1970]: four-digit year, typed manually I think this is a good (the best?) presentation. By using a manual day entry instead of providing a dropdown, as the programmer you can avoid requiring client-side logic to restrict the number of days displayed in the dropd…

It is. It’s the military format.
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