Forms: Usability Checklist

Here’s a nice resource from A List Apart on Usability of Forms: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/sensibleforms

Sections in the article cover:

• Use the right field for the task
• Give them room to type
• Shorten your forms and question “mandatory” fields
• Mark mandatory fields clearly
• Provide descriptive labels for all of your fields
• Let the computer, not the user, handle information formatting
• Use informative error messages
• Don’t return users to an altered form

Also: care should be taken to design forms for a logical path when tabbing from field to field. I thought this practice was gone, until I requested an account on the Trek to Talloire site yesterday. The fields took me from “Home Address” to “Email Address” to “Town/City” to “Confirm Email Address”.