Keep it real

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I'm just improving a UI I've built for a client, fairly ordinary stuff, but I'm stuck for coming up with short data validation messages.

 

One particular field on the form requires a string representation of a number which is a member of the Set of Reals. (i.e. an every-day number with or without decimal point). Internally it's stored as a Single/float.

 

So initially I thought I'd just put down "Please enter a real number".

 

But the system isn't used by ...shall we say "mathematically orientated" people, so I fear the message would just sound condescending thanks to the double-entrende of "real" in this circumstance.

 

They're the sort of users who think an "imaginary number" is Eleventeen or Twentytwelve, rather than a member of the Complex set.

 

So what's the best short data validation message I can put to instruct users to put in a simple number with or without a decimal component?

 

Ta

 

 

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