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On the World Wide Web, forms are the essence of communication, and yes, there
is a method to its madness. Presentation is everything on the web, and if you
want feedback from your visitors, you need to conform to their visual biases
and expectations on how forms should both look and act. Let's take a quick look
at 5 basic form tips.
1. Do Not Bore Them. Include what you need, throw away the rest
Do not make your visitors write a book to send you feedback. Keep your forms
short, simple and to the point. Not only do your visitors have more to do than
fill out a lengthy form, they are sensitive to the information they provide
others, especially over the Internet. If this is a comments form, ask their
name, e-mail address and comments. You do not need their location, date of birth
or their favorite color.
2. Create Data Restrictions
Have you ever received a blank form? What about a name that spans out 100 characters?
To prevent these common occurrences, place data restrictions upon your form.
For example, require certain form fields (refer to this Javascript or PHP article
for more on requiring fields), or restrict the available character count for
a text box. How is this done? Let's take a look:
<input type="text" name="Name" size="20" maxlength="10">
This is a typical text box named Name, with a size of 20 and a maxlength of
10. This means that although the text box will span 20 character positions to
the right, only 10 characters will be allowed in that text box. This type of
restriction would work well with middle initial fields or state code fields.
3. Start Them Off on the Fight Track
Is it so much to ask that the user must click in the first box to begin filling
out the form? Yes! Well, this could be debatable, but a nice feature none the
less. Here is how you'd automatically place the cursor in a particular text
box.
<body onLoad="document.forms[0].fieldname.focus();">
How's this? If you already have a body tag, simply copy and paste from onLoad
to the right. What this says is place the cursor in the 'fieldname' text box
in the first form of the page. Note, you can place the cursor, by default upon
page load, in any text box, but logically, you'd place it in the first text
box the user would fill out, like Name, for example.
4. Organize the Form Data
Another good practice of forms is the use of a table to organize the text and
input elements. A common use is a simple two-column table, the left column supplying
the question or criteria and the second column providing the actual form element.
5. Give Them a Confirmation
Okay, it's simply a matter politeness to thank the visitor for taking the time
to fill out your form, so after submission, the user should be presented with
a thank you page. Many server-side scripts written in ASP, Cold Fusion, Perl,
or PHP have this feature built in.
In short, these 5 easy and basic tips can improve your response frequency and
make your forms look and act more professionally. Remember, forms are your best
friend, so treat them well.
About the Author:
Steve |
