Smart Forms in React: Handling Autocomplete, Focus, and User Experience

When building modern web applications, forms are often the first point of contact between you and your users. A smooth, intuitive form experience can make or break your app — and your business.

We specialize in building user-friendly, scalable web apps using React. In this article, we’ll show how our team tackles common challenges like autocomplete, focus detection, and browser navigation in React forms — so you can see the level of care and technical precision we bring to your project.

🔍 What Is Autocomplete and Why Does It Matter?

Autocomplete helps users fill out forms faster by suggesting previously entered information. It’s helpful, but it can also be tricky to control or detect, especially in React.

For example, how do you know if a user is selecting an autocomplete suggestion — or if they’re typing? Most browsers don’t fire typical events when autocomplete suggestions appear, making detection unreliable.

✅ Our Approach:

• We design around autocomplete limitations by handling focus, blur, and value changes explicitly.
• For critical fields (like email or credit card input), we test behavior across Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and mobile browsers.

🎯 Detecting If an Input is Focused in React

Knowing if an input is focused helps with accessibility, validation, and UI feedback.

Example:

const inputRef = useRef(null);

useEffect(() => {
  const isFocused = document.activeElement === inputRef.current;
  console.log("Is focused?", isFocused);
}, []);

We use refs and document.activeElement to track input focus reliably, even when browser autocomplete interferes.

🧠 Handling Browser Back Button in React Forms

A surprising challenge is knowing when the user navigates back using the browser button. Why? Because useEffect doesn’t run again when React just re-renders an already mounted page.

Solution:

We use the pageshow event:

useEffect(() => {
  const handlePageShow = (event) => {
    if (event.persisted) {
      // Page restored from bfcache (back-forward cache)
      console.log("Returned from browser back");
    }
  };

  window.addEventListener('pageshow', handlePageShow);
  return () => window.removeEventListener('pageshow', handlePageShow);
}, []);

This helps us restore form states, re-run validations, or reload data — ensuring your users always get the right experience, no matter how they navigate.

🛡️ Custom Form Validation in React

We integrate custom validation with react-hook-form, giving you full control over error messages and validation logic.

Example:

const {
  register,
  handleSubmit,
  formState: { errors },
} = useForm();

const onSubmit = (data) => {
  if (data.name.trim() === "") {
    console.log("Name is required!");
    return;
  }
  console.log("Form submitted!", data);
};

return (
  <form onSubmit={handleSubmit(onSubmit)}>
    <input {...register("name")} placeholder="Name" />
    {errors.name && <span>This field is required</span>}
  </form>
);

Our team ensures that validation works perfectly with keyboard navigation, autocomplete, and accessibility standards.

🧩 Real-World Integration: The Riskified Beacon Example

For e-commerce or fraud prevention workflows, we integrate tools like Riskified Beacon via dynamic script injection:

useEffect(() => {
  const script = document.createElement("script");
  script.src = "https://beacon.riskified.com/rb.js";
  script.async = true;
  document.body.appendChild(script);

  script.onload = () => {
    window.riskifiedBeacon('init', {
      shop: 'yourshop.com',
      order_id: '1234',
      session_id: 'abcd1234',
    });
    window.riskifiedBeacon('page_view');
  };

  return () => document.body.removeChild(script);
}, []);

Need custom logic based on session or fraud risk level? We’ve done it before — and we can do it for your product too.

👨‍💻 Why Choose Us for Your React Project?

If you’re reading this, you’re likely looking for a team that:

✅ Understands React in depth
✅ Knows the browser quirks you don’t want to deal with
✅ Writes clean, scalable code that just works

We don’t just build features — we craft experiences. Whether you’re building a simple form or a high-performance enterprise platform, our team can help.