Question

I have a wizard where users need to fill out data. You cannot navigate to the second step until first step is completed.

I enforced this behavior by disabling/enabling “Next” button, but I really do not like this solution, since it seems not really elegant or safe here. What is the good approach on building step-by-step processes with enforcing step completion.

Thanks!

Answer 1

I think level of safety depends of logic requirements.

• If user have to input some
  authorization information before
  second step(like PIN code) you can
  put this information(or some
  hash-code generated from this
  information) in cookies and validate
  cookies when second step is posted.

• If user just have to input all
  required information before second
  step(like country name from first step is needed to generate states for second step) but have not done this and tries
  to post data for second step you can
  validate this sittuation on the
  second(or even last step) and
  generate exception or redirect on the
  first step.