Customer Reviews

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

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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.

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! ;)

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.

"Forms that work" is a practical discussion of the challenges of creating effective web forms. It provides a common vocabulary for the critical elements of form design. It describes practical solutions and best practices through concrete examples accompanied by clear and specific explanations.

Two things about this book jump out:

- "Forms that work" highlights the PROCESS of form design in a hmmm-I-never-thought-about-FORMS-that-way ... kind of way. (OK, be honest. You sweat over/test drive every question on your user research surveys. But do you REALLY do that with every question on the web forms you create?) The process will be familiar to the Usability community. But its application to web form design has some unique twists and turns that are worth knowing about.

- "Forms that work" is the "Don't make me think!" of web form design.
It tells the story of how to create good web forms in plain language. But it does not lecture. Its information rich because it makes things less complex. The content is presented thoroughly, but its not belabored. The examples are well chosen.

The conversational style, the density of important insights the clarity of examples and just the right amount of humor will keep your interest. What that means is--and this is the important thing-- reading it won't make you tired of reading OR tired of forms. When you put "Forms that Work" down, you will feel like you know a lot more about how to create good forms. And, you will think about forms differently.

Who knew?


[PS. If you're one of the 11 people in the global UX community who has not read "Don't make me think," buy that one too.]

I wrote the foreword for this book, so obviously I think very highly of what Caroline and Gerry have to offer. (Eveyone who knows how much I hate writing will understand that agreeing to do the foreword means I *really* liked this book.)

Even though I make a point of recommending Forms That Work--along with Ginny Reddish's excellent Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works (Interactive Technologies)--every time I give a talk anywhere, I haven't actually re-read any of it since it was first published. Then this past week when someone asked me a question about forms, I pulled my copy off my bookshelf. I found what I was looking for right away, but then I started leafing through it, just enjoying all the great advice embedded in the headings, and dipping into some of the text and illustrations. I have to admit, it was even better than I remembered.

Here's my advice: If you have a form on your Web site, do yourself a favor and get a copy of this book.

I found Forms that Work fun and easy to read. It's filled with illustrations and real-life examples which makes it easy to understand how to put the concepts into practice. What I love about this book is that it's compact and succinct. The authors deliberately decided to keep the book under 200 pages which I think was a very wise decision.

There's no doubt that after reading this book you will be able to design better forms. I highly recommend it.

I'm kind of surprised that this book didn't sell out shortly after printing. By reading and using this book, any web site manager that has forms on his or her web site could probably double conversion rate!

It's a well-known fact that the vast majority of your form visitors will at some point abandon your form. Why? This book will help you easily answer that question.

By applying the knowledge you gain from the best practices and principles in this book, you'll decrease the number of abandonments, and increase the number of conversions.

You'll probably get a raise, or at least a bonus, and can finally take that trip you've always wanted to go on to Paris, the South of France and Italy (unless of course you happen to live in Paris, the South of France or Italy in which case you're probably going to Walt Disney World).

The concepts and techniques in this book are inspiring. Instead of a list of rules, Forms that Work gives you a way of thinking that you can apply to any project, whether you are designing a new form, redesigning one (or taking it from paper to online), or evaluating the usability of a form.

The concept of looking at a form from the perspectives of how it is presented, and the relationship and conversation it creates is invaluable. Forms that Work made me see how all three of these aspects of a form have to work together to create a good user experience.

The writing is friendly and approachable, and the many examples make the concepts easy to understand.

You will never look at a form the same way again.

Your web site probably includes forms, and you want those forms to be easy for people to fill out so that you get reliable, accurate information. You need this book.

Caroline Jarrett and Gerry Gaffney give you excellent, practical advice on how to plan and develop forms that work. Their model of "relationship, conversation, appearance" helps you understand not only how but also why following their guidelines will make your web forms successful. In less than 200 colorful, easy-to-read pages with a wide variety of examples, you'll get all you need to design useful, usable forms. Get this book!

This is an excellent resource for all aspects of form design. Not only does it cover all the key aspects, it thoroughly explains the reasons for each of the recommendations. The recommendations also detail the more subtle aspects of form design, something that I haven't found in any other book.

A must have for anyone who designs forms.

Their advice is excellent, well researched, and based on extensive experience. It has certainly made it much easier to design usable forms, and justifying your designs.

Thank you.