Posts Tagged ‘input field’
Date Type & Datepicker
Anyone using a standard text field for dates should upgrade to the new date type.
Fields with the date type show as a text box, with a datepicker poping up when the field is selected. A datepicker allows users to input dates in an intuitive and interactive way, therefore reducing the risk of errors.
Date Format
Another reason for using a datepicker is to alleviate the date format problem. Because of date formatting differences, 12/07/2008 means December 7th in the U.S., but July 12th in Europe. Although we initially thought of adopting the ISO/W3C date format “yyyy-mm-dd”, we eventually preferred the U.S. format “mm/dd/yyyy”. That is, until we release an internationalized version of FormSmarts.
Because users don’t interact directly with the text field (unless they want to), but rather with the datepicker, they don’t have to be aware of date formatting issues.
To avoid any misunderstandings, dates are displayed as Sunday July 20, 2008.
Any questions or comments? Leave a reply. We are in particular interested in feedback from non U.S. users.
Posted on July 20th, 2008 in form handler.
2 Comments »
Tags: email notification, form handler, input field, international, web forms
Geolocalized Country Selection Field
We’re going to add over the week-end two new input field types: country, and date. You should upgrade any web forms currently using a standard text field for country or date to the new types.
When to Use the Country Type
Choose the country type whenever you want to show on a form a dropdown list with the 280 odd ISO country names.
Visitor Country Selected by Default
A country list field is typically used to ask the visitor about his/her country of residence. You’ve certainly already experienced the frustration of having to search for your country in a long list each time you fill out a form. At FormSmarts, we want to save time to everyone, so the visitor’s country is automatically selected by default.
That way, users only have to change the selection if the question asks them about a country different from their country of residence. For example, “Where did you travel last time you went abroad?”
Reducing the time needed to fill a form helps reduce form abandonment.
Any questions or comments? Leave a reply.
P.S. We’ll present the date type in another post.
Posted on July 17th, 2008 in form handler.
No Comments »
Tags: form handler, geolocalization, input field, web forms
How to Lay Out Form Input Fields
Your goal as a web publisher is maximize the number of (legitimate) respondents to your forms. A first step towards this goal is to lay out your forms in a way that is intuitive to users, makes forms faster to fill in, and minimizes form validation errors.
It follows four points you should consider when designing a web form:
- choose the most appropriate input field widget for the situation
- group fields together within logical sections
- place multi-line text input fields (textarea in HTML) towards the bottom of the form
- group optional fields together at the bottom of the form
The first point is discussed in details in FormSmarts documentation.
The second point commends, for example, that when you ask people about their contact details, you group all relevant fields (first name, last name, email,…) together. We found that most form designers tend to do that right. The form builder will in the future allow users to define different logical (and visual) sections within web forms.
Multi-line text input fields obviously tend to take longer to fill in than other input fields. They require more effort, thinking and typing, so place them after other fields. Visitors will be less inclined to abandon the form altogether if they have already spent time completing the first part of the form.
The last point is about grouping optional fields together at the bottom of the form. This allows people to quickly review the remaining questions, and skip the fields they don’t want to fill in or don’t apply to them. This may of course conflict with grouping fields within logical sections. In that case, place optional fields at the end of each logical section.
We’ve now enabled comments, and we warmly welcome your thoughts and feedback about this post. if you’re reading this by email, just click on the title to post a reply.
Posted on June 29th, 2008 in HTML form.
4 Comments »
Tags: form builder, form design, howto, input field, web forms
Ever Wished You Could Reorder Fields?
The set of form-making operations supported by FormSmarts form builder was up to now almost complete, allowing to:
- create a form
- delete a form
- edit form properties (name, title, return URL, form filling instructions, recipient email account)
- add a form input field
- delete a field
- edit field properties (name, description, field type, input widget, optional/required)
The last unsupported operation was to allow users to easily change the order in which fields appear on a form. This is often needed to:
- group fields logically
- group optional fields together at the bottom of a form
- insert a field in a existing form
- move fields around to increase the visual appeal of a form
Reordering fields manually is tedious, as it involves deleting and re-creating fields.
No more. Reordering fields is now a trivial drag & drop: in the fields tab, drag the field you want to move, and drop it in the position you want.
As usual, we welcome your comments and suggestions about this feature.
Posted on June 20th, 2008 in form builder.
1 Comment »
Tags: form builder, form design, input field
Building Successful Web Forms, Part 1
Web forms play a key role for visitor (and customer) interaction on many
sites. However, many web designers don’t realize that there may be huge
differences in form abandonment ratio, depending on how well the form is
designed. In this post and follow ups, we’ll give you some tips to help
you make your web forms an effective communication channel.
Always provide form filling instructions.
Don’t assume that all of your visitors will understand how to submit a form without further explanation. Short and clear form filling instructions can reduce form abandonment, and increase the quality of the information collected.
- include a call to action phrase like “Please fill out this form to
contact XYZ” - indicate the purpose of the form and the recipient of the information collected
- if applicable, confirm that you will reply, and give an indication of the time frame
Select the correct data type for each input field.
Because of necessary form validation, choosing and incorrect data type may prevent a form user from submitting valid information. When this happens, it is likely to lead to form abandonment.
For example, if you specify that a form field can only contain a Number, it may not work for a phone number. 1233456789 will work, but not 123-345-6789. So use
the Phone type instead. In many cases, the form builder will
pre-select a type for you, but not always. Read
more about selecting an input field data type in the form builder documentation.
Choose the most appropriate input field widget.
Don’t restrict yourself to text boxes and drop-down lists. Take advantage of the full range of HTML form fields with radio buttons and checkboxes. Learn when to use each one.
Using a drop-down list for a yes/no question will slow down the form user, and increase the chances (s)he gives up. Use radio buttons instead. Read tips about choosing the best input field widget in the form builder documentation.
Brand your forms for instant visual recognition.
Always brand your web forms with your own logo. This helps visitors
recognize at first sight who they are about to send information to.
Posted on May 6th, 2008 in HTML form.
No Comments »
Tags: form builder, form design, howto, input field, web forms
