aboutsummaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/build/cut-your-forms-in-half/index.html
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to 'build/cut-your-forms-in-half/index.html')
-rw-r--r--build/cut-your-forms-in-half/index.html73
1 files changed, 73 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/build/cut-your-forms-in-half/index.html b/build/cut-your-forms-in-half/index.html
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..81d8c3a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/build/cut-your-forms-in-half/index.html
@@ -0,0 +1,73 @@
+<!doctype html>
+<html lang="en">
+<head>
+ <meta charset="utf-8">
+ <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
+ <meta name="color-scheme" content="dark light">
+ <link rel="icon" href="data:,">
+ <title>Cut Your Forms in Half</title>
+ <link href="/atom.xml" type="application/atom+xml" rel="alternate" title="Atom feed for blog posts" />
+ <link href="/rss.xml" type="application/rss+xml" rel="alternate" title="RSS feed for blog posts" />
+<style>*{box-sizing:border-box;}body{font-family:sans-serif;line-height:1.33;margin:0 auto;max-width:650px;padding:1rem;}blockquote{background:rgba(0,0,0,0.1);border-left:4px solid;padding-left:5px;}img{max-width:100%;}pre{border:1px solid;overflow:auto;padding:5px;}table{text-align:left;width:100%;}.footnotes{font-size:90%;}</style>
+</head>
+
+<nav>
+ <a href="#menu">Menu &darr;</a>
+</nav>
+
+<main>
+<h1 id="cut-your-forms-in-half">Cut Your Forms in Half</h1>
+<p>2019-05-09</p>
+<p><em>Building web forms can sometimes feel like a boring or daunting task</em>. Don&#8217;t pass this dread on to your users - rip out as many of your form fields as possible.</p>
+<p>Web forms tend to get a bad rep, mainly because so many horrible design choices are made without the user experience set at the forefront. Often times clients demand that they <strong>need</strong> those twenty input fields or else how will they collect critical information from their users? Normally when I&#8217;m approached with such a statement I simply ask them:</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>&#8220;How many form fields would you be willing to fill out for an emergency situation?&#8221;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>&#8220;My form isn&#8217;t for emergencies though&#8221;, they might reply. In that case ask them why they feel it acceptable to waste their users&#8217; time just because it isn&#8217;t urgent. Time is valuable.</p>
+<h2 id="fixing-a-form-in-the-wild">Fixing a form in the wild</h2>
+<p>Let&#8217;s use a real-world form off the <a href="https://www.greatwestlife.com">Great West Life Insurance</a> website as an example (left is original, right is updated):</p>
+<h3 id="breaking-things-down">Breaking things down</h3>
+<p>So what exactly have we changed?</p>
+<ul>
+<li>Combined first and last name fields into a single input</li>
+<li>Removed the overkill &#8220;retype&#8221; email &#38; password field (with the optional <code>show password</code> this becomes redundant)</li>
+<li>Minor position changes for optional subscription sign up and input field descriptions</li>
+<li>Removed <code>recovery email</code>
+<ul>
+<li>This is something that should be prompted to the user after successful registration - don&#8217;t bog them down before they even sign up</li>
+</ul></li>
+</ul>
+<h2 id="helpful-micro-improvements">Helpful Micro improvements</h2>
+<p>You don&#8217;t need to be extreme when gutting form fields - just be practical.</p>
+<ul>
+<li>Don&#8217;t use &#8220;first&#8221; and &#8220;last&#8221; names as separate inputs, instead use something like &#8220;Full Name&#8221;</li>
+<li>Make complex questions use preset answers via <code>checkbox</code> or <code>radio</code> inputs</li>
+<li>Avoid <code>select</code> items whenever possible (these are clunky and most times unnecessary)</li>
+<li>Include easy to understand, real-time error prompts</li>
+</ul>
+<h2 id="further-reading">Further reading</h2>
+<ul>
+<li>Great place to deep-dive into UX form design: <a href="https://uxmovement.com/category/forms/">UX Movement</a></li>
+</ul>
+<footer role="contentinfo">
+ <h2>Menu Navigation</h2>
+ <ul id="menu">
+ <li><a href="/">Home</a></li>
+ <li><a href="/projects">Projects</a></li>
+ <li><a href="/uses">Uses</a></li>
+ <li><a href="/wiki">Wiki</a></li>
+ <li><a href="/resume">Resume</a></li>
+ <li><a href="/colophon">Colophon</a></li>
+ <li><a href="/now">Now</a></li>
+ <li><a href="/donate">Donate</a></li>
+ <li><a href="/atom.xml">RSS</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#top">&uarr; Top of the page</a></li>
+ </ul>
+ <small>
+ Built with <a href="https://barf.btxx.org">barf</a>. <br>
+ Feeds: <a href="/atom.xml">Atom</a> & <a href="/rss.xml">RSS</a><br>
+ Maintained with ♥ for the web. <br>
+ Proud supporter of <a href="https://usefathom.com/ref/DKHJVX">Fathom</a> &amp; <a href="https://nextdns.io/?from=74d3p3h8">NextDNS</a>. <br>
+ The content for this site is <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">CC-BY-SA</a>.<br> The <a href="https://git.sr.ht/~bt/bt.ht">code for this site</a> is <a href="https://git.sr.ht/~bt/bt.ht/tree/master/item/LICENSE">MIT</a>.
+ </small>
+</footer> \ No newline at end of file