Form Design, Luke W

> Knowing most people dislike filling in forms should be reason enough to care about good form design
> Illuminating a path to completion by showing people how they can complete a form is crucial. 

Best Practices

• Take the time to evaluate every question you are
adding to your forms. Be vigilant about removing
everything that isn’t necessary.

• Strive for succinctness in all the questions
(labels) you ask in your forms.

• When succinct labels may be misinterpreted,
look for opportunities to use natural language
to clarify the questions your forms ask people to
answer.

• Ensure that your forms speak with one voice,
despite questions from several different people or
departments.

• Organize the content on your forms into logical
groups to aid scanning and completion.

• When possible, structure your forms as a
conversation. Natural breaks between topics will
emerge that can help you organize your form.

• If a form naturally breaks down into a few short
topics, a single Web page is likely to be a good
way to organize the form.

• When a form contains a large number of
questions that are only related by a few topics,
multiple Web pages are probably a good way to
organize the form.

• When a form contains a large number of
questions related to a single topic, one long Web
page is generally a good way to organize the
form.

• Consider asking optional questions only after a
form is completed. Chances are you’ll get more
answers than if these questions were part of the
initial form.

• Consider using Web convention surveys to
discover patterns in how forms are organized on
specific kinds of sites.

• Use the minimal amount of visual information
necessary to distinguish content groups.

• Use initial capital letters to make the titles of
content groups easier to scan.