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Designing Web forms using boxes and arrows. (Intranet Librarian).

Article Excerpt
Intranets usually offer interactive applications for their users. Whether interactive form-based applications are crowd pleasers or sources of major frustration depends on their purpose and design. It's an uphill battle to create effective forms. Many people dislike forms of any kind and have a whole host of associations from negative past experiences with them.

What should you think about when designing Web forms? Think about the users: What are your users like? Are they in a hurry? Will they use the form occasionally or daily? What are their goals? What do they wish to accomplish on the "Ask a Librarian" or the "Travel Expense Claim" page? Their mind-set is often different than that of the database developer or the project's sponsor.

Once you can tune into what the users want to accomplish with the form, then you can begin to organize the information in a natural way for the user. The organization of the content is a key factor in getting users to complete a form. Consider how to arrange the requests for like information together. For example, all of the address information can be collected at once and in a conventional order--street, city, state, and ZIP/postal code.

When users follow a link to a form, they expect to see boxes and arrows. They are primed for action. Nothing is more off-putting to users than arriving at a Web form and finding two to three screens of dense text. This is simply bad design. The users will skip the text and typically willingness at each question without referring to the text above. A few may scroll up and down while completing the form, losing their place, and wasting valuable time. Strive for unity of design. Keep the instructions related to a field or a section of the form right next to the point where they are needed.

FORMS AND INFORMATION ANXIETY

No doubt many people find filling in forms troublesome. They complain that the forms are too hard, too long, or irrelevant. In fact, a badly constructed form can make users feel inadequate and this just leads to more frustration. Here are some things that users worry about.

* Will this form be a waste of time?

Tell the user upfront the purpose of the form and what it will deliver. Users look first at the middle area...