In this talk, Caroline Jarrett will use eye-tracking data, and her many years experience of forms, to give you ideas for the next time that happens to you . She’ll also get us thinking about some other details of forms, like required field indicators and colons on labels. Caroline Jarrett started to work with forms when delivering Optical Character Recognition systems to the then Inland Revenue. The systems didn't work very well, and it turned out that the problems arose because people made mistakes when filling in forms. She developed a fascination with the challenge of making forms easy to fill in, a fascination that shows no signs of wearing off over 15 years later. Caroline is co-author of 'Forms that work: Designing web forms for usability', the companion volume to Ginny Redish's hugely popular book 'Letting go of the words: Writing web content that works'.

1. Label placement in forms Caroline Jarrett and other time-consuming forms controversies FORMS CONTENT

5. Where people look on forms Reading forms is different from using them The ‘narrow focus’ effect – and what it means for placing labels

6. Reading forms is different from using them

11. The ‘narrow focus’ means big jumps for the users’ eyes.

15. A section of a form where I think left-aligned labels really are necessary

16. Users can survive a lot

17. Decide on where to put your labels according to your users, their goals, and the questions Your users and their goals .... Your questions ... Put the labels ... Willing to reveal the answers; filling in the form helps them to achieve a goal Simple, only a few of them Above Simple but lots of them Right-justified Complex Left-justified Unwilling to reveal answers or reluctant to fill in the form Simple or complex Left-justified (you’ll need more explanation)

18. Let’s stress about details Colons at the end of labels? Sentence or title case? Required field indicator?

22. An example of required field indicators at the wrong end of the field

23. An example of required field indicators using colour alone

24. Two ways to trip up your users 1. It’s not OK and I don’t want to Cancel 2. ‘False ends’

25. Buttons really do matter to users.

27. ‘ False ends’: if it feels like the end of the conversation, users will stop

28. ‘ False ends’: if it feels like the end of the conversation, users will stop

30. Question time Caroline Jarrett [email_address] 01525 370379 I’m a consultant, hire me: Consultancy: www.effortmark.co.uk Training: www.usabilitythatworks.com Free stuff: Forms advice: www.formsthatwork.com Editing: www.editingthatworks.com Columns: www.usabilitynews.com “Caroline’s Corner”