Development Web

Whether you have a contact form or a sign-up form, a web form is an essential part of almost every website and every good designer cares about their user’s experience. I’m here to tell you the little things that may make or break your user’s experience when meeting your web form. 

Your user’s experience should be an essential step when creating any part of your website, because a user friendly website will mean that visitors will be more likely to return. No matter how user friendly your website may appear to be, you may still hurt your business if your forms aren’t up to scratch.

‘Go Hard or Go Home’ tactics don’t work

Starting a form with hard questions can instantly cripple user experience. By starting with easy questions you can give users a running momentum before they come to questions that require more thought. For example, by asking general questions such as a name, address, phone number and/or e-mail before asking for a user name and password gives your user a ‘running start’ to tackle questions that requires some degree of creativity.

Words are your friends

Too often designers, developers, programmers and engineers create a form that uses language that is so terse it makes the user feel as if they’re talking to an automated program (which they are but this is what we want to avoid because it is damaging to user experience). To fix this problem, use sentences! Conversational questions used in your form can make a difference and show your user that they’re not just dealing with an automated program. It shows them that someone cared enough to consider their point of view.

Another thing to point out is that error messages and warning messages shouldn’t sound like they came from a calculator. When conveying error and warning messages it should be as if you are talking to the user. For example, ‘You have missed a field’ as opposed to ‘Error: Missed field: E-mail’

Validation do’s and don’ts

Validation has become a heavy part of any website form and without it your website will be at risk of a spam attack. The old way of validating a form would occur after the form has been sent. However, with the new innovation of AJAX, validation is implemented while the user fills out a form. This allows them to review the information as they go along, without the need of sending the form through only to have it come back with errors.

These are few of the many things to consider when creating a form for your website. Overall, your user’s experience should be your priority when creating a web form. Gathering information through your website’s form can either be a smooth easy process for your user, or it can be a gruelling horror. What kind of forms do you have on your website?

No related posts.