I was recently filling out a web form to sign up for a service, and as I completed the form and hit the submit button, I was hit with the infamous “that user name is already taken”, so no big deal right?

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Thanks for posting… I am gonna check out the book

~ Aaron I

Great to see that you’re posting on forms.

I agree that it’s really worthwhile to think about where users are going to look, and to work with their natural reading patterns.

Not quite so convinced about showing progress. Yes, this can be really good if the form has a natural progession like a shopping cart. But if it’s something like a job application, where users have got to come and go as they accumulate information to go into the form, then it can be much more successful to have what we call a ‘summary page’, i.e. a top-level page that allows users to dip in and out of the individual pages of the form in whatever order they need to.

For more information and ideas: see our book, “Forms that work: Designing web forms for usability”

Cheers
Caroline Jarrett

What you write about the form design rings true.

It has happened to me more than once that the name I wanted to use was taken and there was no indication of that until I was done filling the form.

Some forms have a script or a button where you can check if the name is available right away.

Providing a clear path to complete the form is also important and helpful. When progress is not indicated and the form goes on and on it is very frustrating.

Especially when the phone rings or somebody is at the door as tends to happen when I’m filling out a form like that it is tempting to just give up and close the browser.

If progress was indicated then pausing and finishing up the few steps that may be left would be a breeze.

I look forward to reading more of your posts.

Vance.

So I have put together a list of 10 ways we can improve our form design….

Take the form for your comments for example, I like these, a lot of developers I know would hate the overly padded form fields, but that is why they are not designers. Visually these make more sense to “non techies” and are visually balanced. You also handle the alignment of the left hand label text well, something else I’ve seen overlooked or botched before. People sometimes forget to design for PEOPLE! I love that you addressed simple communication and usability as these are key.

I think that this post is something that a lot of people can benefit from, great post Aaron!