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Landline phone numbers in electronic forms
In September 2009, we published data showing typical ways that users enter their mobile/cell number into an electronic form. This data was a by-product of some research that Jessica Enders, Principal...
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Phone numbers in electronic forms
This is the third and final research post in our current series on phone numbers in electronic forms.In our two previous articles, we looked at user behaviour regarding mobile phone numbers and the...
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Perception and the design of forms — Part 1: Shape
Why do we see what we see?Most of us understand, in a general way, how it is that humans see. Light hits the eye, stimulating rods and cones and sending electrical signals down the optic nerve to the...
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Perception and the design of forms — Part 2: Size
This is the second of six articles we plan to publish on how the visual design of forms should be influenced by the way humans see.Each article in the series will look at one of the 6 Gestalt Laws of...
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Perception and the design of forms — Part 3: Colour
This is the third of six articles we plan to publish on how the visual design of forms should be influenced by the way humans see.Each article in the series will look at one of the 6 Gestalt Laws of...
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Perception and the design of forms — Part 4: Figure/ground
We're making our way through a series of articles on how the visual design of forms should be influenced by the way humans see. So far, we've examined the three characteristics:Characteristics (things...
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Perception and the design of forms — Part 5: Proximity
This is the fifth article in our series about visual perception and the design of forms. We're focusing on 6 relevant principles of human perception, namely:Characteristics (things that are an aspect...
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Perception and the design of forms — Part 6: Similarity
This is the sixth and final article in our series about visual perception and the design of forms. In case you don't know these off by heart yet, the six Gestalt principles particularly relevant to...
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Well-designed error messages
Error messages are a necessary part of every formOn electronic forms, error messages indicate when input is missing or invalid.Even if your form has been carefully designed with great user experience...
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Fixing forms is easy...no?
We're not sure who coined the idiom first, but it's definitely true to say “the less you know about something, the simpler it seems”. A good example is other people's jobs. Have you ever asked someone...
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Must read? Must go in question!
Picture a web-based quote form for car insurance. One relatively low-priority option — which costs the customer more money — gets significantly higher take-up than industry benchmarks. The insurer is...
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Double entry of form fields
Have you ever filled out a web form and been asked to enter the exact same piece of information twice?This is “double entry” — also known as “re-entry” or “confirm” — and you've probably encountered it...
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Mad Libs madness
The original Mad Libs® were a series of books by Roger Price and Leonard Stern, published in the 1970s [1]. The books contained sentences where children had to ‘fill in the blanks’, creating funny...
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Online retail missing out on millions
Despite the strong rewards on offer, Australian retailers have been slow to transition to online. At a time when the majority of the population shops on the internet [1], some of our biggest brands are...
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Sex and gender
A warning: This is a educational piece about collecting sex and gender in forms. There is no pornographic material, written or visual. However, some people may find the content of this post — in...
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The double life of forms
What is a form?A form is a tool for collecting data.Want to buy a book online? Fill out a form so that the seller knows where to send the book, and how you want to pay. Data has to be collected from...
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Character separators in paper forms
Pop quiz: what's the difference between the fields shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2? Figure 1 Figure 2 Answer: in Figure 2, the field has character separators.You've probably seen a paper form where the...
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Required versus optional fields – a new standard?
A topic that surfaces time and time again is whether — and how — to mark required fields on a form.Required fields, also known as mandatory fields, are questions that must be answered by the...
View ArticleInfield top-aligned labels: use with care!
In April, Anthony from UX Movement posted a detailed article arguing for a new way to position field labels in forms. For a number of reasons, Anthony said, the best location for a field label is just...
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Is inline validation out?
The following is an excerpt from our brand new book, Designing UX: Forms.Buy the book wherever great content is sold online, including Book Depository, Booktopia, Amazon and O'Reilly.You can also...
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