Comments on: How does your web form flow?

By: Micah

Micah — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:14:24 +0000

Although this will obviously vary from site to site, and form to form, would it be helpful to assume a few things about the user’s input to help them along? For example, if most people ended up checking the box so the same phone number was entered in both fields, perhaps have it checked by default. As Bennett said, forms have been using the “if different” setup for quite some time. Taking that a step further, do you think it would be helpful/usable to allow the user to uncheck that box to reveal another field for Evening Phone?

By: Kevin Jessop

Kevin Jessop — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:33:03 +0000

Very good article, Dave. Flow is very important. I like how you tackle and differentiate between the considered and immediate response and how that impacts flow.

The rest of the solutions posted by readers are valid too. I love how there is flexibility in usability…well, sometimes.

We had a similar issue in a recent test. The form was a typical credit card detail thing – name on card, expirations date, etc.

However, the boxes were out of order. The credit card number box was last and at the bottom of the page. The format of the credit card number was displayed below the box but most people missed it. They saw the input box at the end of the field an immediately entered the details without looking at the example below. Wonky flow.

Great article, sir.

By: David Hamill

David Hamill — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 09:22:49 +0000

Hi Bennet, thanks for the comment. As I said in the comment above yours, there are a number of ways it could be resolved. I didn’t want to include a thesis on the client’s situation in order to make the point. Your example would work well too.

By: Bennett McElwee

Bennett McElwee — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 23:11:25 +0000

Why not do the same thing as you suggested for the invite number? Just add an explanation to the label:

Evening phone (if different from daytime phone)

This flows perfectly, without the repetition.

My suggestion is not original, of course. It’s been used in order forms (paper and online) for years. They ask for your billing address, and “Delivery address (if different)”.

By: David Hamill

David Hamill — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 08:59:56 +0000

Hi Yoav. There are many ways that the problem could be resolved. Your method would work if the labels were changed from daytime and evening to preferred and alternative numbers. However clients aren’t always able to be so flexible. Having made such a change would have apparently cost a lot of money. What seems like a simple change to a website can actually be quite difficult for some large businesses.

By: Yoav M.

Yoav M. — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 08:49:02 +0000

Great article indeed.
I didn’t understand something: why not simply remove the “mandatory” asterisk from the evening phone? As a user filling many forms in my past – I encountered many cases where only one of the phones were mandatory and the other weren’t – meaning only the first one is the one to be used.

By: David Hamill

David Hamill — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:51:05 +0000

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By: Aye Moah

Aye Moah — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:14:14 +0000

Your last point about treating the form as a conversational piece seems to be the new trend of form design. I’m noticing more and more of informal conversational tone in form labels.

This reminds me of this particular sign up form at Huffduffer where the entire form is a dialog.

http://huffduffer.com/signup/

I’m not certain this will test well in terms of completion speed or ease of scanning.

By: David Hamill

David Hamill — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 19:24:05 +0000

Hi Artem. The example is very simple I agree. That’s why I chose it. I try to choose examples that illustrate a principle. In this one I’m talking about how people behave differently when dealing with questions of varying difficulty. Hopefully a simple example helps to communicate the point.