Web Form Design
Filling in the Blanks
Forms make or break the most crucial online interactions: checkout (commerce), registration (community), data input (participation and sharing), and any task requiring information entry. In Web Form Design, Luke Wroblewski draws on original research, his considerable experience at Yahoo! and eBay, and the perspectives of many of the field’s leading designers to show you everything you need to know about designing effective and engaging Web forms.
Forms make or break the most crucial online interactions: checkout (commerce), registration (community), data input (participation and sharing), and any task requiring information entry. In Web Form Design, Luke Wroblewski draws on original research, his considerable experience at Yahoo! and eBay, and the perspectives of many of the field’s leading designers to show you everything you need to know about designing effective and engaging Web forms.
Testimonials
Luke Wroblewski has done the entire world a great favor by writing this book. Online forms are ubiquitous and ubiquitously annoying but they don’t have to be. Wroblewski shows Web designers how to present forms that gather necessary information without unnecessarily badgering and annoying visitors. With deft explanations and clear examples, he presents a clear case for better Web forms and how to achieve them. This book will help you every day.
Alan Cooper, Chairman, Cooper; author, The Inmates are Running the Asylum
If I could only send a copy of Web Form Design Best Practices to the designer of every web form that’s frustrated me, I’d go bankrupt from the shipping charges alone. Please. Stop the pain. Read this book now.
Eric Meyer (meyerweb.com), author of CSS: The Definitive Guide
Luke’s book is by far the most practical, comprehensive, data-driven guide for solving form design challenges that plague every interface designer. It is an essential reference that will become a must-read for many years
Irene Au, Director of User Experience, Google
Form design has historically been an afterthought, a partial chapter in past web design primers. Thankfully, we now have Luke’s indispensable best practices in print. This book will now sit on my desk whenever I’m designing an application.
Dan Cederholm, Principal, SimpleBits; author of Bulletproof Web Design
Through really clear examples and succinct best practices, Luke brings joy to designing forms. I love this book and will be adding it to my list of “must haves.”
Bill Scott, Director UI Engineering, Netflix; former Yahoo! Ajax Evangelist
Luke’s book is a concrete, practical roadmap for making the guts of any web product or service work better. He has made thinking about forms fun—and more important, he has put the user front and center in his approach. This is great stuff!
Michael Dearing, Consulting Associate Professor, d.school Stanford University; former SVP and General Manager, eBay.com
It’s about web forms, but, more broadly, it is a lesson in how to think about web design. It should be on every web designer’s frequent-reference bookshelf after a cover-to-cover read.
Larry Tesler, SVP, User Experience and Design, Yahoo! Inc.
Luke has become the foremost expert on form design in the design industry and has now put together all his thoughts in an easy to use book. This is a must read book for anyone making forms online.
Preston Smalley, Director, Interaction Design, eBay Inc.
I just wanted to say that the book is fantastic! It’s very refreshing to see a book with very practical advice for both novice and seasoned designers.
Daniela Jorge, Director, User Experience at Intuit
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: The Design of Forms
Chapter 2: Form Organization
Chapter 3: Path to Completion
Chapter 4: Labels
Chapter 5: Input Fields
Chapter 6: Actions
Chapter 7: Help Text
Chapter 8: Errors and Success
Chapter 9: Inline Validation
Chapter 10: Unnecessary Inputs
Chapter 11: Additional Inputs
Chapter 12: Selection-Dependent Inputs
Chapter 13: Gradual Engagement
Chapter 14: What’s Next?
FAQ
We’ve identified some common questions about web form design. The short answers are provided here; and longer ones are available, of course, in the book.
- Why does Web form design matter?
Forms enable commerce, communities, and productivity on the Web to thrive. If you are in online retail, your goal is to sell things. But standing in the way of your products and your customers is a checkout form. If you are developing social software, your goal is to grow your community. Standing in between you and community members is a form. If you’ve built a productivity-based Web application, forms enable key interactions that let people create and manage content.
