Required field feedback is subtle

[aebrown]

When you have finished composing a new article, you need to save it. If you click Save, it may be the case, that almost nothing happens, which can be confusing. This may well be caused by failing to enter a category. What actually happens is that the label "*Category" changes in color from gray to dark red, and a dark red border appears around the category text box.

But some people are color blind, and others aren't particularly observant, and that visual feedback is just not enough. So they may think they successfully saved the article -- after all, there was no error message. If you click the Save button in a word processor or spreadsheet application, it's not uncommon for there to be no feedback at all unless there is an error. So it's not unreasonable to assume that the article was saved. And if you navigate away from the page at this point, you receive no warning, which some people may (erroneously) take as confirmation that no changes will be lost.

This is not just theoretical. I had this problem when I first tried the Newsletter and was puzzled for a little while before I figured out why it didn't save my article. And I just asked my ward website administrator (who is quite tech savvy) to give the beta Newsletter a quick try. He failed to save his first article, but wasn't sure whether he had been successful or not.

Please consider adjusting the feedback when required fields are missing to be more obvious so that users will clearly understand that their changes have not been saved.