Forms that Work: Designing Web Forms for Usability (Interactive Technologies) [Paperback]

Caroline Jarrett (Author), Gerry Gaffney (Author), Steve Krug (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 26, 2008 | ISBN-10: 1558607102 | ISBN-13: 978-1558607101 | Edition: 1

Forms are everywhere on the web - for registration and communicating, for commerce and government. Good forms make for happier customers, better data, and reduced support costs. Bad forms fill your organization's databases with inaccuracies and duplicates and can cause loss of potential consumers.

Designing good forms is trickier than people think. Jarrett and Gaffney come to the rescue with Designing Forms that Work, clearly explaining exactly how to design great forms for the web. Liberally illustrated with full-color examples, it guides readers on how to define requirements, how to write questions that users will understand and want to answer, and how to deal with instructions, progress indicators and errors.

*Provides proven and practical advice that will help you avoid pitfalls, and produce forms that are aesthetically pleasing, efficient and cost-effective.

*Features invaluable design methods, tips, and tricks to help ensure accurate data and satisfied customers.

*Includes dozens of examples -- from nitty-gritty details (label alignment, mandatory fields) to visual designs (creating good grids, use of color).

*Foreword by Steve Krug, author of the best selling Don't Make Me Think!

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The humble form: it may seem boring, but most of your website's value passes through forms. Follow Jarrett & Gaffney's guidelines, and you'll probably double your online profits.” - Jakob Nielsen, Principal, Nielsen Norman Group

"This book isn't just about colons and choosing the right widgets. It's about the whole process of making good forms, which has a lot more to do with making sure you're asking the right questions in a way that your users can answer than it does with whether you use a drop-down list or radio buttons.” - Steve Krug, Foreword author and author of the best selling Don't Make me Think

"If your web site includes forms, you need this book. It's that simple. In an easy-to-read format with lots of examples, Caroline and Gerry present their three-layer model -- relationship, conversation, appearance. You need all three for a successful form -- a form that looks good, flows well, asks the right questions in the right way, and, most important of all, gets people to fill it out.” - Janice (Ginny) Redish, author of Letting Go of the Words -- Writing Web Content that Works

Product Details

• Paperback: 199 pages
• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann; 1 edition (November 26, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558607102
• ISBN-13: 978-1558607101
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 0.5 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #556,339 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'm a user experience and usability consultant. I work with organizations to help them make their forms easy.

I love working with forms - but it's not because I love forms. It's because so many forms are really not very good, so they give me lots of opportunity for making improvements.

How do you make a bad form better? Easy: test it with users and then make changes based on what you find.

My forms book will give you ideas for how to make those changes. My textbook will help you learn how to do better testing and user interface design in general.

You can follow me on twitter @cjforms - drop in and say hi, or ask me a question and I'll try my best to answer it.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive demystification for forms on the web August 1, 2009

By Jessica J. Enders

Format:Paperback

The web design world has been lacking in a books focusing on forms for a long time, then along come two: "Forms that Work: Designing Web Forms for Usability" and Luke Wroblewski's Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks. Both books are truly good but if you had to choose just one, I would recommend "Forms that Work", for two reasons.

Firstly, while Wroblewski comes from a general web interface design perspective, Jarrett has a forms background. This is important because as anyone who's read texts like Asking Questions: The Definitive Guide to Questionnaire Design -- For Market Research, Political Polls, and Social and Health Questionnaires and Measurement Errors in Surveys (Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics) will know, the exercise of collecting quality data is not a trivial one. In my opinion, someone with data collection expertise can apply that to the web medium more easily and effectively than someone with expertise in the web medium can learn the complexities of collecting data.

Secondly, in addition to specific advice about key aspects of a form's design, "Forms that Work" gives clear overall models for thinking about forms. These models enable the reader to make informed design decisions for cases beyond those covered in the book. This makes "Forms that Work" so much more than a reference.

Add to this the fact that "Forms that Work" is written in a conversational tone, has loads of real life examples (of both what to do and what not to do) and goes into just the right amount of detail, and you've got a extremely valuable resource for anyone who has to design forms for the web.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This missing chapters on forms from every other design book you've read! March 7, 2009

By Benjamin S. Boyle

Format:Paperback

Forms that Work are fantastic - both this book, and the forms you'll create after reading it! If you've ever read a book on web design and thought "I wish it had more advice about forms" this book will fill in all those blanks.

Caroline and Gerry write exceptionally well, and evidently practice what they preach. This book is a concise and enjoyable read, and absolutely packed with useful and practical approaches to form design, beautifully illustrated with examples and backed by the years of research they have conducted into how people really use forms.

It gets straight into explaining effective techniques to approach the design of forms - it's all about the conversation between a form and a person. But it doesn't shy away from sticky design details. Do you wonder about placing colons on the end of labels or not? Do you ponder whether to put your labels above or next to fields, right aligned or left aligned? Read this book. Caroline and Gerry's straightforward advice not only answers those questions (and more), the answers relate back to the customer and the conversation in a way that truly will make better forms. Forms that work.

Why are you still reading this review? Buy the book.
n.b. buy it here and you'll get to fill out some forms during the purchase! ;)

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Instant insights, design forms that will work immediately! November 26, 2008

By Matthew

Format:Paperback

As a web analytics consultant I often need to dive into the world of Usability in order to see the big picture. Measuring shopping cart or sign-up form abandonment rates is only 'my' side of the story, trying to understand which checkout process are stopping a visitor from completing your form or process is the other half.

Caroline Jarrett's and Gerry Gaffney's book "Forms that Work: Designing Web Forms for Usability" gave me instant insights into the inner workings of forms. Using three layers of understanding "Relationship", "Conversation" and "Appearance" Caroline and Gerry explain in a very fluid style of writing how to design an effective form.

The books reads very easy, but don't be fooled. Even though it is not heavily filled with often worthless specialist jargon, it is filled to the brim with important definitions, visitor's perspectives, design techniques and case studies. Just like "Don't make me think" by Steve Krugg, this book is an utter joy to read! I highly recommend this for anyone wanting to get the most out of their online forms.