Abstract:

Forms are ubiquitous and widely disliked, but they can be improved. This tutorial concentrates on the human side of forms: how we react to, interact with, and think about forms and how to design them to make them as easy as practicable.

Learning objectives:

You will learn a five-step process for improving forms:

• Investigating the information need
• Analyzing the relationship between the user and your organisation
• Designing questions that are easy to answer and flow well
• Making forms look attractive and organized
• Testing by adapting your usability tests, and in other ways.

Take-aways include:

• a deep understanding of forms, encapsulated in a variety of slogans and guidelines that are easy to remember and apply
• thorough appreciation of the three-layer model of forms (relationship, conversation and appearance) and how to use it to improve forms
• an appreciation of the importance of investigating forms and methods for doing it
• a range of ways of testing forms and understanding of the value of testing.

The tutorial concentrates on web forms. Previous participants have commented that the ideas are also valuable to them when they work on paper forms, user dialogs, and questionnaires.

How tutorial will be conducted:

Conducted as a lecture, with many examples in screenshots. There are frequent exercises to allow participants to try out the ideas. Participants are encouraged to bring examples of good and bad forms with them for general discussion and for one-to-one questions with the tutor.

Participants in previous versions of this tutorial have annotated their examples during the lectures and exercises, and gone away with a personal action plan for changes they wish to make.

Participant knowledge and experience prerequisites

None.

This tutorial works well if participants have a range of experiences. One successful group included expert forms designers, people with research interests in the design of censuses and other major statistical forms, usability practitioners with a moderate interest in forms and absolute novices. The experts and researchers like the models and overview, and also they like to contribute their findings to the general discussion. The less experienced contribute their personal success and horror stories of their encounters with forms. The practitioners like the way it rapidly adds forms skills to their armory of knowledge and ideas.

The tutorial consists almost entirely of English-language forms. Participants who speak English as a second language may find some of the material is challenging but it has been presented successfully to audiences where most people spoke English as a second language. Where possible, I try to arrange participants so that those with weaker language skills sit near to someone with stronger language skills and the same first language. Participants who are unsure of their English language skills may want to bring a colleague who has a better command of English.

Background notes

Forms are a neglected topic and there is little readily-available material on what to do about them. This tutorial was developed from the tutor's many years of experience of paper, on-line and web forms, and distillation of hard-to-find literature on forms and questionnaires. It has been further refined in response to participants' comments and contributions during over a dozen presentations in seven countries. However, most of these have been outside the USA and this is the first time it has been offered at the UPA Conference.

Introduction, outline of the day, definition of 'form' and 'on the web

Warm up section that introduces the topics to be covered. The first exercise looks at the difference between form questions and questionnaire questions, and how a typical registration form combines them. Participants are encouraged to contribute their views and ask questions throughout the day.

Defining the information gap

Error rates on paper forms are frequently extremely high, mirrored by the drop-out rates and frequent lying that we see on web forms. This section of the day looks at finding out what you need to find out, and finding out what data your organisation already holds and uses. The practical exercise is based on defining a box-by-box protocol, sometimes called a question protocol, for a typical conference registration form.

Relationships: the form experience on the web

People react differently to forms than to other pages on a web site or in a package of documentation. This section discusses how the user interacts with the different pages on the web site, and how the relationship changes from box to box as the user works through the form. We also look at trust and research on response rates in questionnaires as a basis for thinking about response rates / dropout rates on forms.

The practical exercise creates a psychological profile of your users in terms of their views of the form task compared to other aspects of their work or daily lives.

Creating a conversation: questions and flow

A great form is like a pleasant conversation: you hardly notice that you’ve given out information because you’re enjoying it. This topic looks in detail at how users answer questions, or find or construct the answer to a question. We look briefly at the cognitive aspects of reading, then go into more detail on 'locating the answer' and how to choose the appropriate response spaces (also known as 'controls').

We then move to creating a flow across topics, designing validations, and sorting out a preamble (also knows as the instructions at the start of a form).

Participants will improve the typography of a typical hotel confirmation form, choose response spaces for fields on a conference booking form, design a validation for one of the fields on the conference booking form and finally work on improving the preamble for a form that we've looked at as an example in the 'relationship' section.

The appearance of forms

After lunch, we resume with a lighter topic: designing an attractive appearance for the form. Throughout this topic, participants will redesign a typical log-on form to create a paper prototype that they test in the final session of the day.

After a brief look at the visual aspects of typography, we go in more detail into the topics of grids and chunking - using graphic and other devices to diving the form into manageable areas. We then discuss where to place the prompts relative to the boxes for different types of forms and differing user needs. Before the break, participants work in teams to produce their final prototype.

Testing

The final session of the day looks at layer checks (desk checks that relate to the three-layer model of the form that underlies the construction of the day) and then at usability testing. Participants will try out appropriate checks on their newly designed prototypes.

We then look at how to adapt usability testing for testing forms, and try a short test of one of the prototype forms.

The day closes with a brief review of the key topics and a final opportunity for questions.

Instructor Biography

Caroline Jarrett is an usability consultant who specialises in forms. She has consulted on forms design with the UK Inland Revenue for many years, and wrote their 'Body of Knowledge for Forms Usability'. Government forms are her favourites, but she enjoys working on any type for form or questionnaire. She teaches forms design, usability testing and interviewing skills for usability testing. She was the practitioner member of the Open University team that created their new course ‘User Interface Design and Evaluation’, and wrote the units "Evaluation in practice" and "Usability in Organisations". Caroline is co-author with Gerry Gaffney of 'Forms that work', publication planned for June 2003 by Morgan Kaufmann. She holds an MA and MBA, and is a Chartered Engineer.