This is a great example of a form requiring too much information. I filled out all of the fields and pressed continue, but nothing happened. I pressed continue again, and then a third time. Finally, I saw the tiny red Required text near the Title field.
Here are some guidelines to consider when creating a web form:
1. Don’t require too much. The designer should consider what information is absolutely necessary, and only require that information. It is hard to believe that the system in the example—a site to get a free t-shirt—has any reason to require a Title field. The main goal is to get the user to sign up for an account. So, as many fields as possible should be removed or made optional.
Any additional information, such as gender or t-shirt size, could be gathered after the user has signed up.
Also consider alternatives to forms. Allowing users to upload a vCard instead of filling in a form could streamline the process.
2. Make requirements visible. If a field is required, call it out with a red asterisk or other identifier when the user lands on the page, not after they have filled out the form and tried to submit it.
Here's a subtler example of form design that could be improved. This is a site for actors that requires gender, but they only allow "male" or "female" and have not accounted for members of one sex who identify as the opposite sex, etc. The gender field should be removed from the signup form altogether to disallow the user from thinking about gender issues when they should be signing up for your site.
Tags: Web
