A Comprehensive Guideline for Designing Most Efficient Web Forms: On Structure, Input Fields, Labels and Action Buttons

A
Comprehensive
Guideline for
Designing Most
Efficient Web
Forms: On
Structure, Input
Fields, Labels
and Action
Buttons
www.bacancytechnology.com

Any of the web users who access your
website has a specific goal. There
is one common thing between the
user and their goal is a form. Forms
are one of the significant types of
interactions for the users on the
web as well as in the applications. I
am writing this blog post to get you
through the practical principles that
have been drafted from field testing,
eye tracking, usability testing and
actual complaints made by different
users. Let’s dig in.

The form displays with a respective
title for each section of the form and
it asks for only those fields that are
required from the user side. Every
additional field of the form will affect
its transformation rate. Order of the
field should arrange logically as per
the user perspective, not as per the
application or database logic.
Sometimes address fields are
displayed before the name field.

One of the most common problems
in form is it is implemented with
multiple columns and form fields,
where there are chances that the user
conversation with the application will
break. If the form has horizontally
adjacent fields, for referring all fields
of the form then the user should in Z
patterns, slowing the speed of
understanding and obscure the clear
path to completion.

For input fields, I have covered a few
following areas:

Mandatory Fields and
Optional Fields:
The developer should at least clearly
discriminate which input fields are
mandatory and which fields are
optional. It is advisable to represent it in
an asterisk (*) for mandatory fields. The
developer should avoid option fields in
the form.

Number of Fields:
The more number of fields are the more
it irritates the user. It also reduces the
form loading time. Below is an example
of combining multiple fields in one
field.

Indexing on the fields: Make
Form Keyboard-friendly
The user should also be able to use
applications with the keyboard. For
that indexing should set on each and
every component of the form. So the
user can perform the action using the
keyboard only. You can find detailed
requirements for keyboard
interaction patterns in W3C’s
Authoring Practices for Design
Patterns.
Date picker should be relevant to the W3C guidelines

Input Field Autofocus:
Specifies that the input field should be
in focus immediately when the cursor
in the field. Refer below image as an
example of the Amazon registration
form that has both autofocus and
indication.

For Mobile: The Keyboard as
per the Required Text Inputs
The keyboard should display as per the
text input. I.e. In the numeric field, the
numeric keyboard should display and
for the text field, the qwerty keyboard
should display.
Image Reference: Google

A field label is a descriptive text you
create that appears with or covers the
field on the form and helps the user
understand the field.

Use Sentence-Style
Capitalization:
The capitalization characters are very
attractive in any form and human eyes
are attracted to the field easily. But need
to remember one thing — never use all
capital letters in the form. Below
mentioned the example of the “All
Capital ” text.

Form Label Proximity: Left
Alignment vs Right Alignment
vs Top Alignment
The left alignment of the fields creates a
large blank space between the field’s
label and field. This creates more
distraction for users while reviewing the
form.
The left alignment of the fields is easier
from a user’s perspective to view all
fields of the form because there is a less
blank space between the field’s label and
fields.

The top alignment of the fields and
labels are displayed inside the field are
ideal for forms. It’s easy to view the field
name as it’s displayed around the fields.
Image Reference: UX movement

Number of Words:
The words of the form should be
shorter and descriptive, so end users can
easily view the form. Below mentioned
the example of the old and new version
of the amazon registration form.

Inline Labels (Placeholder
Text):
Putting labels inside text boxes have
significant advantages as it helps to
reduce the length as well as the width of
your forms.

Primary Button vs Secondary
Button:
When a user performs any action, that
time they’ll see at least two buttons. One
is the primary button and the other is
the secondary button. As per the user
perspective, the Primary button is
displayed with more highlighted or
dark color and the secondary button is
displayed lighter in color. Below I have
mentioned the example for the same.

Button Location:
On multi-page forms, you’ll have more
than one button back button as well as a
continue button. ‘Back’ button to take
the user to the previous page and
‘continue’ button to take the user to the
next page. It is ideal to keep the
continue button on the right on the
other hand Back button on the left.

Naming Conventions:
We need to circumvent common words
such as “Submit”, “Save”, “Reset” and so
on for any particular action. Instead of
that user’s respective naming for the
button such as “Create Account”,
”Subscribe Now”, ”Send Message” and so
on.
Image Reference: UX movement

The well-designed interface and
enjoyable user-experience is a key to
increase your user interaction and
drive sales. Every form is a
conversation with your users. Our
UI/UX designers can collaborate with
you to create user-centered forms,
objectives, and goals to help
you accomplish the whole process
with perfection. Leverage our UI/UX
design and development services to
build visually compelling, highly
intuitive and optimal designs with the
end-user in mind to captivate your
audience and convert them into
potential customers.

A Comprehensive Guideline for Designing Most Efficient Web Forms: On Structure, Input Fields, Labels and Action Buttons

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A Comprehensive Guideline for Designing Most Efficient Web Forms: On Structure, Input Fields, Labels and Action Buttons