Questions tagged [forms]
Forms are a collection of input fields and design patterns that collect and process different types of qualitative and quantitative data input from users. Can include the visible user interface components as well as the logic required for controlling aspects of its behavior such as form validation, data retrieval and storing of incomplete forms.
370
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OK/Cancel on left/right?
Should OK button be on left of Cancel button or vice versa?
Are there any studies suggesting either of the solutions?
345
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14
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Should I use Yes/No or Ok/Cancel on my message box?
Semantically, the Yes/No buttons are roughly equivalent to the Ok/Cancel buttons, but in general what would you recommend to use? Should I always use Yes/No or always use Ok/Cancel? Or does it depend ...
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On forms, is inline placeholder text better than a label outside each field?
I am familiar with research on label placement to the left or above. I tend to go with right justified with the label to the left of the field for my form designs.
However, inline placeholder text ...
159
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What is best practice for designing form error messages?
I've seen quite a lot of research on form design, but so far, I haven't come across any studies on error message design best practices. The only piece of advice seems to be that each error should ...
134
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8
answers
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Why might right aligned field labels be better?
For the longest time, I've used left-aligned labels in my forms, like this:
I did this because I thought having the labels left aligned made it easier for readers to scan the list of labels.
However,...
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answers
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Is a cancel button necessary in a web form?
Personally I have never used it. I don't put information in a form and then decide everything needs to be cleared. I would edit one field.
Plus cancel in a UI suggests canceling an action which is in ...
49
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What's the best way to highlight a Required field on a web form before submission?
This seems subjective, and it is; a client of mine would like me to highlight the required fields on the web forms in their application with a red asterisk, and I'm looking for an alternative since ...
93
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answers
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Merging firstname/last name into one field
I am entertaining the notion of a single field for name entry on our scheduling web app. I think this is an excellent case for a "forgiving format" to make it easy to enter their names quickly.
I ...
84
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answers
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Do you need a search button with a search box?
On websites with a search box, should you add a button they can click on, or will users understand a search box like on this site?
The target group is not very technical, such as women aged 40-60.
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What is the best way to deal with very complex forms?
I'm trying to give the best experience to users of a very huge system (like a CRM). It has a lot of forms and much of these have a lot of fields. My doubt is about if I should use a single column form ...
21
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Should radio buttons be pre-selected?
I am working on a re-design for a eCommerce site and they have a section where they offer a free gift card if the user makes a purchase over $1000. The idea of the gift card is to get users to ...
59
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What should be the default option of a required dropdown list?
Given that there is no logically default animal from the list of animals below, what should be the "Default Value" below, according to best practice?
<label for="animal">Animal (required):</...
43
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answers
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Disabled submit button on form vs allow submit then show errors?
We have a few different forms as part of a web-based medical application. These forms have quite a few fields - 10-20 depending on the form. Each has at least 5 or so required fields. We currently ...
33
votes
4
answers
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Input form label alignment top or left?
Although I have researched on input form label alignment, I need solid suggestion on when to use form label alignment top and when to use left and why?
For example in the below form username and ...
10
votes
5
answers
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tables with lots of columns
I have a table that lists various attributes of an individuals personal development plan; objective, time to complete objective, comments etc. The table is editable so the user can directly add ...
85
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10
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What is the best UI for multi-selecting from a list?
We have a web form and one of the fields is a multi-select list. Our options are:
List of checkboxes
Listview (select box but allowing multi-select)
Both seem to be a bit ugly and unwieldy when the ...
72
votes
9
answers
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Dropdown vs radio button
User have to choose type of food (from 3 or 4 choices) in our application. Default selection is used in 60 - 70% of cases. What will be better: dropdown or radio buttons?
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Character limits on textarea fields - pros and cons and best practices?
Some of our form fields have character limits. We're debating whether we should reflect the current size of data entry, or to simply hard-limit and inhibit data entry beyond that size.
In HTML, ...
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How much information should you ask for when users register?
So the company wants all the information it can get on the users of its site, but how much should be asked for upon registration?
On one hand, it would be easier for the users to enter only personal ...
32
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Studies showing that the more form fields there are the less conversions you will get
Same old story really; another client is requesting that they need x number of fields on their Contact Us form, and no amount of explaining that less=more will suffice without providing objective ...
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votes
6
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Hide or disable form options? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Don't hide or disable menu items?
On a create/edit form, where the options available to the end user will depend on their previous input, in order to give the user some ...
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votes
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"Sign Up" vs "Create an Account"
Which pick is better for a service? Especially if I would like the website to resemble American style.
Gmail and Dropbox say: "Sign In or create an account"
Yahoo says: "Sign In. New here? Sign Up"....
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How do you indicate progress to users in a multi-step form?
What do you think of the following form design which I've prepared?
there's a progress bar in the top
on the right side the steps are listed, and every time the current state is indicated by ...
15
votes
5
answers
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Disabling submit-button until the user has completed the form
How do you think about disabling the submit-button until the user has completed the form or the required fields?
I find similar questions here on ux.se and somebody answered that the user will think ...
63
votes
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Adding a "none of the above" option to a list of checkboxes
I am working on a series of complex life insurance forms and trying to optimize using standard conventions...
I have this nasty list of medical diseases and a mutually exclusive option, "None of the ...
48
votes
11
answers
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Most User-Friendly Form Fields for Entering Date/Time?
What are the different ways to have fields in an application for date, time, or both? What are the pros and cons for each?
The most common seem to be a combination of 2–3 drop-downs, or some form ...
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votes
12
answers
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Friendly format for phone numbers
Currently, on my website, users are required to input their phone number in a very specific format (555-555-5555). If you forget the dashes it breaks. Does anyone have a good suggestion for how to ...
26
votes
7
answers
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Single page or multi-page forms?
Would it be better to have one long form, and let the user scroll down the page, or split the form into 2 or more pages?
Usability wise, one disadvantage I can think of for having multiple pages, is ...
26
votes
7
answers
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What should ENTER do?
On a web form, what should happen when the user presses the ENTER key?
I'm writing a sign-up form - name, email, password, sign-up button: the usual sort of thing. Since I'm using JavaScript, and the ...
17
votes
3
answers
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Should first and last name be formatted?
When collecting first and last name from users, should the name be formatted if it will be shown to the user again?
Example: BILL is formatted to Bill
It seem almost impossible to account for all ...
15
votes
3
answers
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Form validation - When should error messages be triggered?
I'm working on a registration form with real-time inline validation. I'm wondering when we should trigger error messages:
before, when the field is in focus and until the user has entered a valid
...
10
votes
4
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Best practice: card expiry date on checkout
What is the best format for gathering the card expiry data during the checkout process on an eCommerce website?
So we need to collect the month of expiry and the date of expiry (as standard on all ...
364
votes
23
answers
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Is this rotating cube interface user-friendly?
I'm working on a prototype for an innovative form interface, where different parts of the form are shown on different sides of a cube. The cube rotates, and the user can fill it out as the cube spins. ...
180
votes
18
answers
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Why is it impossible to deselect HTML "radio" inputs?
In HTML, there are currently two types of "checkbox" style controls:
Checkbox: Allows toggling on/off, multiple values can be selected
Radio: Only one value in a group may be selected, does ...
59
votes
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answers
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How can I deal with diverse gender identities in user profiles?
I'm trying to work out the wording for (preferably) a gender dropdown in a user profile of a site I'm working on. I want to be inclusive of people who don't gender orient to either male or female ( ...
34
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4
answers
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Auto Advance to Next Field
When is it appropriate to 'auto advance' from one text field to the next, as in phone numbers and SSN?
26
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2
answers
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Inline editing vs Edit view
I've seen this question asked a few times, but none that relate to my particular scenario. I'm working on a large, complex UI that involves many user types. For this screen, there are 4 types of users:...
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votes
5
answers
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Text Field Validation vs Prevention
I've been having a debate (mostly with myself) over the best approach to deal with invalid input in text fields -- validation versus prevention.
Taking a numeric text field as an example, is it ...
22
votes
4
answers
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Right-Click menu awareness on Web Application
The web application I am building has a custom right-click menu. I'm concerned that the user might not find this menu as normally right-clicking will only display the default browser's menu. Is there ...
18
votes
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What's the best way to make a user read terms and conditions before continuing a form?
What's the best way to make a user read terms and conditions before continuing a form?
Structure of Form:
Label1 [Textbox]
Label2 [Textbox]
Terms and Conditions [Textarea]
Checkbox ["I agree to the ...
18
votes
5
answers
6k
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Pros and Cons for having same form for login, register and forgotten password
I have notice some sites have the same form for login, register and forgotten password.
Below the form you have 3 buttons
i forgot my password
register
log me in
What are the pros and cons on ...
17
votes
7
answers
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What makes a good form?
I've recently been given the challenge to create a preferably 'fun and engaging'-form, consisting of about 40-50 fields. The form consists of four parts, Employee-contact-info, Employment-description, ...
14
votes
4
answers
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Usability of hiding the submit button (and using the enter key to submit)
More and more commonly, I find that websites elect to hide or remove the submit button from forms. One obvious example is this site (along with other StackExchange sites), whose search field lacks a ...
14
votes
11
answers
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How to tell a client in a form that they can enter their email OR their tel # (but both are not necessary)?
In a contact form, I need either their number or email. I've thought of these ways:
Have field label be "Email or Tel #", or "Email / Tel #"
Have the above, but placeholder text in the input saying "...
13
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answers
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Behavior of the Enter button in a form
What is a better experience for a user if they press enter when using a form?
Should it submit the form or move to the next field?
9
votes
3
answers
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Design recommendation for a button
I have a form in which the user requests a report to the system by clicking the Send Report Request button. The system then produces scheduled reports according to the interval the user selected (...
449
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Why do credit card forms ask for Visa, MasterCard, etc.?
You can tell if it's a Visa or MasterCard based on the number it starts with, i.e. 4 for Visa, 5 for MasterCard. Why do most billing forms request the type of card?
It's not a barrier for bots (to my ...
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Should form 'Continue' button be disabled if validation is incomplete?
In forms we often see the 'continue' button inactive until all the required fields are complete:
download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups
Is this actually a help to the ...
68
votes
19
answers
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Form for inputting operating hours of a business
I am designing an interface where restaurants need to input their operating hours. I am thinking of using a slider control for timings for a single day, and then let the user choose days of the week ...
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votes
11
answers
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Mark or don't mark required fields if all are required?
If all fields in a form are required should they be marked somehow (eg. with an asterisk)?
I see this done a lot and find it redundant?
There could be a difference in big forms and small forms, but ...