Considering putting labels infield top-aligned? You may want to read this first.
Tag: layout
Character separators in paper forms
Except for in some very special circumstances, the research shows you shouldn’t separate paper form text fields into individual characters.
The double life of forms
When is a form not just a form? When it’s also a document!
Sure, it’s a disappointing joke, but it’s also a serious opportunity for better design.
Mad Libs madness
The last couple of years have seen a renewal of interest in ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ — or ‘mad libs’ — forms.
New Formulate research shows that in most cases, you’d be mad to use the mad libs approach.
Well-designed error messages
In this article, after summarising the principles of well-designed error messages, we walk through a good example from a live website.
Perception and the design of forms — Part 6: Similarity
We’re finishing our series on visual perception and the design of forms with one of the simpler Gestalt principles: similarity.
Perception and the design of forms — Part 5: Proximity
The law of proximity is one of the most straightforward of the visual perception principles to apply, yet poor implementation leads to a great number of hard-to-use forms.
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Perception and the design of forms — Part 4: Figure/ground
People have a remarkable ability to find the text boxes on a form and fill them in. In this article we’ll explain why, and exactly what is needed for this to work.
Perception and the design of forms — Part 3: Colour
In this article we come to one of the meatiest aspects of visual design that influences the perception of forms: colour.
Perception and the design of forms — Part 2: Size
This is the second in our six-part series on human visual perception and its influence on the design of forms. Nicely related to our previous concept of shape is this article’s topic: size.