I need to add a small piece of help text to a search field in an online form.
The placeholder text (grey text inside the text field) says "Type at least three characters". Then directly under the text field is either:
You can enter a name or an address.
or:
You may enter a name or an address.
Which is preferred? I want to let people know that they can search by name or address.
Best Answer
There's no essential difference, although some users may perceive "may" to be slightly more formal and polite than "can". But assuming that you require the user's name or the user's address, (not just any old name or address), you could consider:
Depending on what you intend to do with the input, you may then also need to specify whether you want the full name and full address. But your placeholder text appears to indicate that, in fact, any input greater than 3 characters will meet your needs.