Hey there, form fans! We’re back again to share more form-building best practices with you–the Dos and Don’ts of form design if you will. Today, I’ll go over the Dos and Don’ts of the fantastic Form Field. Being the forward thinker that you are, intuitive form design is clutch for a positive user experience, but the types of fields you use to collect that data is crucial when it comes to reporting and compiling that information down the road.
Recently, Johan shared 3 Things You Definitely Should NOT Do On Your Forms. I’ll expand on that by highlighting some best practices when choosing field types to collect your data. This guide will cover a handful of Standard and Fancy Pants field types along with tidbits of insight on Field and Form Settings.
Ready? Let’s do this.
I’ve created a form to collect registration information for this summer’s Dino Camp for kids (aka Jr. Archaeologists). This form uses various field types in a way that negatively impacts the user experience as well as potentially skews your data on the backend.
Click on the images below and check out the pointers called out in the field examples:
A few additional resources to help build excellent online forms:
Using Section Breaks to Make Your Forms Easier to Fill Out!
Dynamic Fields for Allowing More than One Camper to Signup per Form
The Science Behind Field Label Placement and Why Top Aligned is Suggested
How to Accept a Terms of Service Agreement
Additional questions for Jen? You know where to go, dear readers.
Comments
I was expecting some helpful hints for beginners, not morons.
Posted July 8th, 2014 by Jay.I guess since I did not know about the CSS to scroll text, that makes me a moron. Thanks Jay.
Posted July 8th, 2014 by maggy.Boring… and a lot of break links to. >-(
Posted July 8th, 2014 by Ricardo Saldanha.I’m an Archaeologist by training and I have no idea why a tyrannosaurus has small arms AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
Posted July 8th, 2014 by Adrian Matthews.I think you mean palaeontologist ( sorry but that really annoys me)
I would like to read this blog post but the link is broken: “3 Things You Definitely Should NOT Do On Your Forms.”
Posted July 8th, 2014 by Susan R.I have been professional webmaster for pushing 20 years and using wufoo forms for a number of years as well, so I am no beginner. However this was a nice refresher and such articles are good for keeping everyone in the correct frame of mind. It may also help some from making the oh so common I just wasn’t thinking mistake.
Posted July 8th, 2014 by Doug.wufoo truly is form building made easy. Love this tool so much!!
Posted July 8th, 2014 by navdeep singh.Thank you for this! I finally got around to reading it and learned several new things. I’ve been designing forms for many years but just started using wufoo last year. If I’d known then what I know now . . .
Posted July 8th, 2014 by Fred.Ah yes, it seems I got my -ologists mixed up. All corrected now.
Posted July 8th, 2014 by Jen Bjers.I love wufoo. The negative comments here are moronic. Does my comment here qualify me for a discount?
Posted July 8th, 2014 by John Yeoman.Thanks a lot!
Posted July 8th, 2014 by Neil4sharks.