Watch
Inline validation 1:05
A 65-second explainer of Inline validation, narrated over the same demo you can try yourself.
Try the interactive Inline validation demo
What this video covers
Inline validation checks a form field as the person fills it in - or just after they leave it - and shows the result there and then, rather than waiting for them to submit the whole form. Done well it catches mistakes early, next to the field that caused them, so people fix problems while the context is fresh instead of being bounced back to a wall of errors at the end.
Submit-only, every mistake landed at once at the end - far from the fields, after all your effort, demoralising. Inline, each problem surfaced at its own field the moment you moved on, while you still knew what you'd typed, so fixing it was quick. That's the value of validating at the right time and place - and the caveat is timing: do it as people leave a field, not while they're mid-keystroke.
