Do you have royal customers? How do you handle their titles?

Imagine the scene….. as a member of a royal family (with a small R - could be a royal family from any country) - and you want to fly from London to New York. What a problem - the title dropdown (common on all travel websites) only has Mr, Mrs, Miss and maybe Dr.

For example, here is the title dropdown from Virgin Atlantic:

It would be a disgrace if you couldn’t put your full title in because when an announcer calls you at the airport - you wouldn’t want to be Mr anything would you…. people have started revolutions for less!

Luckily, you can still travel with British Airways:

Yep - as a fully paid up member of a royal family - you can happily register with British Airways for their Executive club. How lucky is that. Not only do they support ”His Majesty” and “Her Majesty” but they also support kings and queens in training - “Prince” and “Princess“.  

If you are a follower of Royal politics in the UK….. you will know that the UK Royal family have reduced their use of their own jets - and are now flying on scheduled flights….. according to recent press Prince Charles chose to go with British Airways when going to New York recently. I reckon that was because he couldn’t work out how to complete the form on the Virgin Atlantic website as there was nowhere to put “Prince“.

Usability considerations
One process used as part of a large website design project is the use of “personas” (which basically means creating user profiles that reflect your target users - and using them as a basis of decision making through the design process). I would love to see some of the British Airways royal personas!

An alternative to such a long dropdown list is to let users type their own titles in. You would think that this is preferable. However I have seen users put their job titles in when you just describe a field as “Title”…. not sure that is quite the idea either.

The full list
The full dropdown in all its glory is available on the British Airways website:
http://www.britishairways.com/travel/inet/public/en_gb

But, for the fun of it, here is their full list cut and pasted from their dropdown:

Mr
Mrs
Ms
Miss
Dr
Herr
Monsieur
Hr
Frau
A V M
Admiraal
Admiral
Air Cdre
Air Commodore
Air Marshal
Air Vice Marshal
Alderman
Alhaji
Ambassador
Baron
Barones
Bishop
Brig
Brig Gen
Brig General
Brigadier
Brigadier General
Brother
Canon
Capt
Captain
Cardinal
Cdr
Chief
Cik
Cmdr
Col
Col Dr
Colonel
Commandant
Commander
Commissioner
Commodore
Comte
Comtessa
Congressman
Conseiller
Consul
Conte
Contessa
Corporal
Councillor
Count
Countess
Crown Prince
Crown Princess
Dame
Datin
Dato
Datuk
Datuk Seri
Deacon
Deaconess
Dean
Dhr
Dipl Ing
Doctor
Dott
Dott sa
Dr
Dr Ing
Dra
Drs
Earl
Embajador
Embajadora
En
Encik
Eng
Eur Ing
Exma Sra
Exmo Sr
F O
Father
First Lieutient
First Officer
Flt Lieut
Flying Officer
Fr
Frau
Fraulein
Fru
Gen
Generaal
General
Governor
Graaf
Gravin
Group Captain
Grp Capt
H E Dr
H H
H M
H R H
Hajah
Haji
Hajim
Her Highness
Her Majesty
Herr
High Chief
His Highness
His Holiness
His Majesty
Hon
Hr
Hra
Ing
Ir
Jonkheer
Judge
Justice
Khun Ying
Kolonel
Lady
Lcda
Lic
Lieut
Lieut Cdr
Lieut Col
Lieut Gen
Lord
M
M L
M R
Madame
Mademoiselle
Maj Gen
Major
Master
Mevrouw
Miss
Mlle
Mme
Monsieur
Monsignor
Mr
Mrs
Ms
Mstr
Nti
Pastor
President
Prince
Princess
Princesse
Prinses
Prof
Prof Dr
Prof Sir
Professor
Puan
Puan Sri
Rabbi
Rear Admiral
Rev
Rev Canon
Rev Dr
Rev Mother
Reverend
Rva
Senator
Sergeant
Sheikh
Sheikha
Sig
Sig na
Sig ra
Sir
Sister
Sqn Ldr
Sr
Sr D
Sra
Srta
Sultan
Tan Sri
Tan Sri Dato
Tengku
Teuku
Than Puying
The Hon Dr
The Hon Justice
The Hon Miss
The Hon Mr
The Hon Mrs
The Hon Ms
The Hon Sir
The Very Rev
Toh Puan
Tun
Vice Admiral
Viscount
Viscountess
Wg Cdr

Long isn’t it.

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