Web Form Design

A workshop with Luke Wroblewski

March 6, 2012

On the Web, forms bridge the gap between people, their information, and your product or service. From registration forms that welcome new customers to checkout forms that finalize e-commerce transactions, Web forms frequently broker crucial online interactions.

Luke will walk you through the considerations and best practices of Web form design culled from international usability testing, eye-tracking studies, and over ten years of designing Web applications. He'll outline how the interaction and visual design of Web forms can make the difference between acquiring a customer and completing a transaction or not. Attendees will learn about how different types of forms, input fields, input labels, validation, feedback, calls to action, and surrounding visual elements can support or impair different aspects of user behavior, you'll never look at your Web forms the same way again.

What's the breakdown of the day?

Morning: Best Form Practices

Luke will start you off with a review of the best practices for web form design. He'll expand upon the basics from Web Form Design, enhanced by the in-depth research he's done since the book's publication. He'll walk through the current thinking on form structure, layout, inputs, labels, actions, and more.

Then you'll explore the latest research from Luke's analytics studies. He'll show where errors lead to drop offs and the optimal positions for the primary-action buttons. You'll discover the best design options for dealing with international addresses, the most effective placement of help text, and how best to display both error messages and success messages. This won't be just Luke's opinion--he'll show you the studies that back it all up.

Afternoon: Your Questions Answered & The Sexiest Techniques

Are you ready for a game of Stump the Expert? Bring it on with your most challenging web-form questions. Whatever you've been dealing with, Luke's experience at eBay and Yahoo, plus the extensive research he's done on best practices, will provide a solid answer or a new approach.

Luke will then wrap up the day exploring new ways to get input from your users. He'll tackle the sexiest parts of designing web forms today. You'll see the best practices for mobile web forms. If you need your users to sign up for your site, you'll see the latest techniques for making that first experience a great one. (You'll even see how to register folks without using forms at all!)

Luke will show you research on new methods for making forms conversational, such as the new "mad lib" style of form layout. He'll walk you through techniques for gradual engagement, that minimize the arduous portions of signing up, delivering the benefits of your application to your users sooner. You don't want to miss this deep dive into the latest thinking.

Luke was Co-founder and Chief Product Officer (CPO) of Bagcheck which was acquired by Twitter Inc. just nine months after being launched publicly. Prior to this, Luke was an Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) at Benchmark Capital and the Chief Design Architect (VP) at Yahoo! Inc. where he worked on product alignment and forward-thinking integrated customer experiences on the Web, mobile, TV, and beyond.

Luke is the author of three popular Web design books (Mobile First, Web Form Design & Site-Seeing: A Visual Approach to Web Usability) in addition to many articles about digital product design and strategy. He is also a consistently top-rated speaker at conferences and companies around the world, and a Co-founder and former Board member of the Interaction Design Association (IxDA).

Previously, Luke was the Lead User Interface Designer of eBay Inc.'s platform team, where he led the strategic design of new consumer products (such as eBay Express and Kijiji) and internal tools and processes. He also founded LukeW Ideation & Design, a product strategy and design consultancy, taught graduate interface design courses at the University of Illinois and worked as a Senior Interface Designer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), the birthplace of the first popular graphical Web browser, NCSA Mosaic.