I hate that too. It’s easy for them to add code to convert to desired charset.
But check your numbers, spaces and symbols. Ironically their numeric example is in regular english width.
At a previous marketing firm I worked with, we found nearly a 10% increase in form completion rates when we auto-converted full- and half-width characters to the needed format dynamically on entry.
That was almost a decade ago, which serves to demonstrate the sorry state of web design and UIUX in this country.
Like the other commenter said, you have a half-width space after the 3, but no spaces are needed here.
Use full-width kanji unless it specifically specifies kana. If you have to enter your name in English, use full-width romaji.
Second this. I also hate having middle names in Japan.
Maybe that ー between the two numbers should be – instead
Yeah, online forms in Japan are a nightmare.
fucking thing is annoying for sure. Have to make it so that they have to feel 和 even when they fucking type a letter.
Maybe no spaces are allowed
I recommend using a helper website where you can copy and paste text and then will convert EVERYTHING to the required format. I have had a few forms that just would not accept my input, but when copied and pasted from a website that stripped and re-encoded, it was good.
Honestly, a half decent website should 100% account for this, but Japan and coding, eh?
It’s incredibly lazy programming. They could convert it all into the format they want on the back end. But they don’t.
Is there any purpose at all for this half width full width non sense? Genuinely asking
Ah yes, the banking system of Japan. The next global financial hub that require full width kanji in forms and that signatures match exactly to what is on file before transferring money.
[I made this small site to help with this.](https://convertium-mvp.vercel.app/) It may not be perfect, but it’d be cool if helped avoid this frustration for at least one person!
So triggering.
Also, sometimes certain small characters are not allowed.
If your name is Tim and you write it ティム, you have to write it like ﾃｲﾑ rather than ﾃｨﾑ.
I spent hours setting up a bank transfer because of it.
I recently spent about 10 minutes getting my form submission rejected repeatedly while trying everything I could think of to fix whatever was wrong with a supposedly optional field that said it required full width text with 80 character limit, which it also would not let me leave empty despite saying it was optional.
It ended up accepting full width katakana only for that field.
The ones that really drive me insane are the address fields that require everything to be full width text except numbers.
My man, you can totally see your phone number and some other private info on this picture as the black marks are not fully opaque…
I like how most websites figure ONLY Japanese people use their services. So, enjoy when they say, “No, you must fill in your name WITH hiragana, Mr. ろばあと!”
Another fun aspect of this is trying to explain to the U.S. head office why the Japanese version of their lead capture form needs the name in at least two formats and not just being able to enter two different types of characters but at the same time.
Looks like other commenters have already helped out and you’ve taken down the image, but for future reference keep in mind that some forms also don’t like the “ー” long vowel mark. Which fucking sucks, since it’s a part of my legal name here.
Wait until you actually have to develop something in the background with full width or half width with systems that dont support this. We had to come up with nasty workarounds just to make interfaces work.
Anyone know what the actual history of character sets is in Japan? It’s pretty easy to read up the history of ASCII and EBDIC or whatever, but I don’t know how Japan came to have multiple language encodings. The wiki talks about the technical differences but not which companies or people came up with it.
It’s a test to filter out foreigners
I can’t remember which courier it was but I remember the tracking number for my parcel being rejected for being the wrong width font. Only numbers.
Definitely! Such a stupid thing and so easy to auto-correct!
Is the space full width and are you sure? I had a problem with that at the post office, and even the staff were having trouble figuring it out. Big laughs all around as we found the one invisible half width space (that the manager had put in).
Now imagine it when writing school entrance exams. Full width question numbers with full width periods and space. Full width brackets with full width single digit numbers and half width two digit numbers.
Maybe the hyphen isn’t using full-width. It is hard to tell.
Yeah, the whole thing is fucked beyond repair. And I’m saying it as a software engineer working in Japan, I try my best to deliver the best UX possible, but sometimes it’s just not possible because the systems downstream were written 100 years ago and won’t accept anything else.
Am Japanese and hate the system with passion.
Every western website: when where you born? Every Japanese website: when where you born and how old are you? Maybe I should keep track of how old I am for my own sake, maybe. But maybe your code can just calculate it with the info I just gave you!?
Thanks for bringing up the flashbacks, op. There goes my nice couple day combo streak of not remembering about it…
33 comments
Check if there are any half width spaces…
I hate that too. It’s easy for them to add code to convert to desired charset.
But check your numbers, spaces and symbols. Ironically their numeric example is in regular english width.
At a previous marketing firm I worked with, we found nearly a 10% increase in form completion rates when we auto-converted full- and half-width characters to the needed format dynamically on entry.
That was almost a decade ago, which serves to demonstrate the sorry state of web design and UIUX in this country.
Like the other commenter said, you have a half-width space after the 3, but no spaces are needed here.
Use full-width kanji unless it specifically specifies kana. If you have to enter your name in English, use full-width romaji.
Second this. I also hate having middle names in Japan.
Maybe that ー between the two numbers should be – instead
Yeah, online forms in Japan are a nightmare.
fucking thing is annoying for sure. Have to make it so that they have to feel 和 even when they fucking type a letter.
Maybe no spaces are allowed
I recommend using a helper website where you can copy and paste text and then will convert EVERYTHING to the required format. I have had a few forms that just would not accept my input, but when copied and pasted from a website that stripped and re-encoded, it was good.
Honestly, a half decent website should 100% account for this, but Japan and coding, eh?
It’s incredibly lazy programming. They could convert it all into the format they want on the back end. But they don’t.
Is there any purpose at all for this half width full width non sense? Genuinely asking
Ah yes, the banking system of Japan. The next global financial hub that require full width kanji in forms and that signatures match exactly to what is on file before
transferring money.
[I made this small site to help with this.](https://convertium-mvp.vercel.app/) It may not be perfect, but it’d be cool if helped avoid this frustration for at least one person!
So triggering.
Also, sometimes certain small characters are not allowed.
If your name is Tim and you write it ティム, you have to write it like ﾃｲﾑ rather than ﾃｨﾑ.
I spent hours setting up a bank transfer because of it.
I recently spent about 10 minutes getting my form submission rejected repeatedly while trying everything I could think of to fix whatever was wrong with a supposedly optional field that said it required full width text with 80 character limit, which it also would not let me leave empty despite saying it was optional.
It ended up accepting full width katakana only for that field.
The ones that really drive me insane are the address fields that require everything to be full width text except numbers.
My man, you can totally see your phone number and some other private info on this picture as the black marks are not fully opaque…
I like how most websites figure ONLY Japanese people use their services. So, enjoy when they say, “No, you must fill in your name WITH hiragana, Mr. ろばあと!”
Another fun aspect of this is trying to explain to the U.S. head office why the Japanese version of their lead capture form needs the name in at least two formats and not just being able to enter two different types of characters but at the same time.
Looks like other commenters have already helped out and you’ve taken down the image, but for future reference keep in mind that some forms also don’t like the “ー” long vowel mark. Which fucking sucks, since it’s a part of my legal name here.
Wait until you actually have to develop something in the background with full width or half width with systems that dont support this. We had to come up with nasty workarounds just to make interfaces work.
Anyone know what the actual history of character sets is in Japan? It’s pretty easy to read up the history of ASCII and EBDIC or whatever, but I don’t know how Japan came to have multiple language encodings. The wiki talks about the technical differences but not which companies or people came up with it.
It’s a test to filter out foreigners
I can’t remember which courier it was but I remember the tracking number for my parcel being rejected for being the wrong width font. Only numbers.
Definitely! Such a stupid thing and so easy to auto-correct!
Is the space full width and are you sure? I had a problem with that at the post office, and even the staff were having trouble figuring it out. Big laughs all around as we found the one invisible half width space (that the manager had put in).
Now imagine it when writing school entrance exams. Full width question numbers with full width periods and space. Full width brackets with full width single digit numbers and half width two digit numbers.
Maybe the hyphen isn’t using full-width. It is hard to tell.
Yeah, the whole thing is fucked beyond repair. And I’m saying it as a software engineer working in Japan, I try my best to deliver the best UX possible, but sometimes it’s just not possible because the systems downstream were written 100 years ago and won’t accept anything else.
Am Japanese and hate the system with passion.
Every western website: when where you born?
Every Japanese website: when where you born and how old are you?
Maybe I should keep track of how old I am for my own sake, maybe. But maybe your code can just calculate it with the info I just gave you!?
Thanks for bringing up the flashbacks, op. There goes my nice couple day combo streak of not remembering about it…