Cheryl Kay – Secretary – Xplor Eastern Canada
“Oh, we’re going electronic. We don’t need any help with forms design.”
I heard this recently from a customer whose forms contain critical information that needs to be read and interpreted in a fast paced, multi-tasky (new adjective) environment. Knowing that a well-designed (good) form can reduce the incidence of errors by as much as 50% or more, we had approached them with the intent of helping them mitigate their risk.
Apparently, they have been sold on the notion that if you make forms electronic, they will magically be better. This is an extremely dangerous assumption.
First of all, to reiterate an important point made by my fellow blogger and Xplor member (Western Chapter) Julia Sedhu: “not all forms are best served electronically; choose the medium based on the requirements.”
Secondly, the key basics of what makes a good form or a bad form don’t change when the medium changes. You still need to understand people and how they react to forms. You still need to ask the right questions at the start. Here are a few key examples:
- Who is going to be completing this form?
The answer to this drives a number of things: the language and terminology used, the amount of instruction required, how to logically group the questions and information in a way that makes sense to the audience. These elements can be very different if the person completing the form is highly experienced and knowledgeable versus the person coming to your company site for the first time looking for information.Online forms introduce new things for consideration in this category. Some of the language used may now need to include computer terms like “back button” or “browser” that not everyone is familiar with. If you just scoffed at that, then you are at risk of designing a “bad” form if any of the audience includes novice computer users.
- Where is the form going to be completed and read?
This question used to involve considerations for designing a form that could be used on a clipboard in a low light warehouse environment, or one that was used in a typewriter in a well-lit office, or one that was completed manually on a kitchen table at home. These considerations have morphed into knowing what devices are being used to complete things and how that impacts the grouping and flow of the information. Knowing where the form is going to be read, and by whom, is a whole other opportunity for avoiding bad form experiences. Are you going to force the reader to scroll through several pages to get the only two pieces of information that he or she really needs? Or are you going to use the power of the computer system and consolidate information into relevant chunks for each user? That means knowing what each user needs from the form and that means asking a lot of questions and doing a lot of design work. - Are you asking for the right information?
I have worked on a lot of forms redesign projects where no one on the project team knew why certain questions were on the form. They have “always been there”. People hate to fill in forms. This is true no matter what the medium. Don’t annoy them with unnecessary stuff. No information should be requested that:
- is not use at some step in the process
- is not stored for future reference
- is already on file
Talk to stakeholders and all those who work with the forms and gather only the information that is really needed.
Forms are still around and they are everywhere – some still on paper, more and more on line. No matter what the medium, good design makes good sense, saves money, reduces errors and provides a better experience for all concerned. Some bad experiences are serious, as in an emergency room intake form, or some are just annoying, as in an on-line checkout screen. Wherever they are, they can and should be avoided. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that you don’t need expert help designing online and electronic forms.