FRONTPAGE

Form Design

"Computers are supposed to make our lives easier, not more difficult. As usability-conscious designers, we can make our users' lives easier by thinking about the way people interact with our websites, providing clear direction, and then putting the burden of sorting out the details in the hands of the computers—not the users.

It's that last part that we're going to focus on here. We've all heard and read about big usability mistakes time and time again: "Don't use images or flash for navigation," "Don't use Javascript for links," and I certainly hope we're all applying those lessons in our work. It's often the smallest usability quirks, however, that create the biggest annoyances for users, especially when it comes to HTML forms. Follow these guidelines, and you'll be off to a good start."

• Use the right field for the task
  
• Give them room to type
  
• Shorten your forms and question "mandatory" fields
  
• Mark mandatory fields clearly
  
• Provide descriptive labels for all of your fields
  
• Let the computer, not the user, handle information formatting
  
• Use informative error messages
  
• Don't return users to an altered form