Question

I have tried google and looked at the iOS Human Interface Guidelines but cannot seem to find anything on the best practices for displaying that a UITextField inside of a custom Grouped UITableViewCell is required.

Is there any recommendations or has anyone seen how other applications do it? I am basically creating a form dynamically and need to let the user know some way that certain fields MUST be filled out.

Answer 1

Generally, an asterisk is a good idea. If you use placeholder text, then when the user fills in the box, they can’t see it anymore — so a filled-in form wouldn’t tell you which fields were mandatory or not.

I would put a small UILabel next to the UITextField, and have that UILabel contain an asterisk, probably in red.

Or, if most of the fields are required, then you can use placeholder text in the optional fields, that says (optional)

Also, you can create a method that checks if all the required fields are completed. If they aren’t, then disable the “Continue” button. If they are, then enable the “Continue” button. Call this method via a UITextFieldDelegate method.