Marking Required vs. Optional form fields

On the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) discussion list, Erin Walsh shared some interesting insights on marking Required vs. Optional form fields.

“We recently did prototype testing on several search forms with a mixture of required and optional fields. On the team we were split on the best approach, so we tried to distinct methods: one with optional spelled out, the other with those fields having a different visual indicator. Though the sample size was limited, the “Optional” won hands-down. Remarkably, some participants even commented on how much they liked that it said “optional right there”. I know our UI team was not thrilled, but it was extremely advantageous to spell it out rather than use an icon or other visual indicators.”

–Marking Required vs. Optional form fields, IxDA Discussion list