Questions tagged [forms]
Forms are generally used to retrieve different types of qualitative and quantitative data from user input through controls such as text fields, radio buttons, checkboxes, sliders, buttons, or any type of custom control used to collect data input. Form- and field-level validation, error and status messaging, and issues around contextual help within forms may also fall into this category
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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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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?
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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. ...
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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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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 ...
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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 ...
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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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Splitting credit card number fields into four different inputs
I have previously been using 4 fields for the credit card number, splitting up each set of 4 numbers to make it easier to enter.
I am now thinking about having one field, which inserts spaces after ...
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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 ...
JonW♦
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What is better: yes / no radio, or simple checkbox?
In a very big form on my company's website, there's this tendency to use Yes / No radio buttons combination.
I can think of one argument of not using it, but it is not UX related: we need to ...
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Why do dialogs have grey backgrounds?
Most Windows/Mac/Linux dialogs I've seen have grey backgrounds. About-dialogs, settings pages, wizards, confirmation and error dialogs etc.
Is there a reason from a usability perspective or is this ...
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Removing placeholder text on focus
Chrome, Safari, and Firefox 15+ remove the placeholder text after the users first key press in the text input field.
Opera, IE, and Firefox 14 and below remove placeholder text immediately after ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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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Should read-only text appear as plain text or in a read-only textbox?
Should I use labels for read-only information, or should I use read-only text boxes to maintain the look of the fields?
It seems to me that if something is in a textbox it implies there is some way ...
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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 ...
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Does a form with continuous save need a "Save" button?
I am designing a web-app with a lot of forms and i was wondering how to improve the filling.
The classical pattern is : fill, fill, fill, Save
Have you experimented a form which auto-save each field ...
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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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Best UI to allow expert users to enter an ip address? (IPv4)
I am working on a web application which requires users to enter an IPv4 address (in dotted-quad decimal notation) for most of the primary tasks they need to perform. Our primary target "user" is a ...
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Submit and Reset button, what's the best order?
In a form with a Submit and a Reset button and the end, what's the best order for the user experience ?
Submit first ?
Or Reset first ?
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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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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 ...
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Boolean switch with a third state
Note: everyone has seemed to have misunderstood this question. Literally, everyone. I am not creating some sign-up form, I am not collecting personal data. The form of which this is a part is used to ...
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How long should the debounce timeout be?
When using the debounce() operator for form validation how long should the debounce timeout be?
I currently have mine set to 400 milliseconds but idk if that is too short.
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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 ...
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How to tell the users about a unpredictably long process?
I create a website where a user needs to to fill in a form.
After that the form starts to call an API with this input.
Unfortunately the API response is very slow and sometimes user has to wait about ...
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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 ( ...
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Is a confirm email address field still considered a best practice?
Having an input field to confirm an email address is pretty standard. However, I would like to know if using a confirm email address field still considered a best practice.
The Email and Confirm ...
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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):</...
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What color for error messages for a form with a red background?
I have a big website with some forms.
There are four background-colours for the form components. One of them is pink/red.
Here the image and the error message:
I can't change the form background-...
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Does it make sense to authenticate a user when he/she provides existing valid credentials while registering?
Someone came up with this proposed behavior recently and I haven't been able to find examples of services working the same way. I have to say I don't really like it, but can't put my finger on a ...
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How can I guard against users accidentally sending emails without attachments?
I often dash off emails to people and still I forget attachments. I am using an email client which does keyword sniffing, e.g. if I type 'attachment' or similar it will pop up a warning, but more ...
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Can a form be too easy to complete?
I've been working on the onboarding/registration section of my product for some time now.
We've managed to reduce the form to only one text field. Users register via social login (traditional login ...
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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 can I make it extremely clear that the user needs to take one last action?
I am developing a new checkout wizard for my company's website, and I've added a "confirm your selections" panel as the last step in the wizard:
From my perspective as the designer, I feel that I ...
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Alternatives to checkboxes and radio buttons in web-based surveys?
I've been tasked with designing a simple questionnaire design with a lot of different types of questions. I've been taking a lot of web-based surveys myself as well as testing some with users. The ...
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Showing "this is secure" on credit card entry screen
Should I show some sort of "this site is secure" puffery (e.g. lock image, or some brief "this site is secure" boilerplate) on my credit card payment screen? If so, what should it look like? If not, ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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Why do Radio Buttons not fill the entire outer circle?
My question is simple:
Why do most radio buttons not fill their entire outer circle?
Example of standard radio button:
(Unusual) Example of an entirely filled radio button:
Is this for some ...
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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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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 ...
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Do I really need a login button?
We've been having a discussion in the office surrounding a login page we're developing for a new web application. The web application is in intranet-based application, and is mainly used by users who ...
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Slider control when there is no maximum value
I'm trying to design a control where the user can enter a figure that has no maximum value. For example, how many miles that person wants to travel that year.
There's a text field there for direct ...
JonW♦
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Should a user be logged in after resetting their password?
Lets assume following flow:
I want to log in
I don't remember password
I click on the "forgot my password" link (email is dispatched)
I check my inbox and click on the link
I type in a new password
...
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How do we stop users overpaying in financial web forms?
Submitting my online council tax payment last week, I made a mistake. Instead of specifying £X.00 in a freetext payment field, I missed the dot and accidentally entered by £X000!
I'm currently waiting ...
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Should label and field be separated with colon?
When you have a form with fields and captions for these fields, should you do it like that:
Field1: [ ]
Field2: [ ]
or like that:
Field1 [ ...
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Should I force the user to enter an email before actually using a paid app?
I am working on an iPad app. It's in the medical field and the app will be sold for $99, which is kind of expensive!
The client and the developer want to force the user to give his/her email address ...
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Have I missed anything from my list of web form best practices?
So I have been putting together a list of best practices to apply to forms recently and there is a lot of conflicting research out there. I have been combing everything from blogs through to HCI ...
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