Forms are often the most over looked aspect of a web site, ironically they are also one of the most important as they act as the conduit for interaction and activity.

I’m not going to talk about how to make accessible forms or even how to make pretty forms that’s been covered elsewhere, what I am going to do is talk about things that I constantly encounter that drive me mad and curse the fact that I ever got involved in the internet way back in the early 90′s and damn my brothers and sisters who build these silly things!

1. Please remember me.

   The worse culprits for this are travel web sites and are the reason I hate using online systems for booking travel. This is the little story, are you sitting comfortably? I pop into a travel agents with my wife and kids, I have there passports and I sit down with the rather dim looking travel agent and I explain that I would like to go to Fiji for a couple of weeks, probably about the end of September. She asks for mine and my families names, dates of birth etc. and goes off to look for a suitable break, there is nothing that month, do I want to try another month?

   Yes sure why not! Okay she says, whats your names, dates of birth and… now come on do we have to go through that again, I just told you, did you not remember?

   Nope says the dim travel agent.

   Annoying is it not?

   Why the hell do we do that online, I know its easier on the severs and ho-has and technical whatsits, but as a user I don’t care, make my transaction easier and I’ll do it otherwise I’ll settle for a week in a caravan at the bottom of the road rather then deal with you.

   For forms that are part of a possible multiple use search, remember what I entered and let me change the variances I want.

2. Don’t tease me.

   The worse ones for these are job advertisement sites where… yes I know you should read a form all the way through before starting to fill it in but they are the old rules and there are new ones now, things have changed… anyway as I was saying Job sites and job applications, I lie to spend time on these an do them properly, crafting each answer to a question, as is fitting for a Creative Director position, and it takes some time but its always at the bottom that they ask you for some form of qualifying information, such as ‘You need to have the write to work in the USA in order to apply for this possible, do you have either a…’ If there is some qualifying information required ASK IT FIRST.

3. Don’t ask me questions I can’t answer, or make me tell lies.

   There are many different instances of this but the one I encounter most is the post code / zip code one. At the moment I live in a fairly rural part of the Republic of Ireland and we have a limited number of online services so if I want most things I have to order them from either America or the UK and that’s fine, its the price you pay for living in a beautiful tranquil and wet part of the world. However another thing that this area doesn’t have is Post codes, I don’t know why, maybe they just never needed them as every one knows everyone else anyway. So when I want to fill in a form an the postcode is mandatory even though I’ve told you I don’t live in the USA and don’t have a pesky zip code, your dumb arsed web site insists that I tell you one or you wont take my money, so I have to lie and make one up.

4. Realize its not always this or that, sometimes its a bit of the other.

   This point is somewhat related to the point above about not making me lie, in that form developers often forget that people are woolly and awkward and there lives don’t fit into one of five selection options so if you are going to ask me something like whats my eye colour is it: Blue, Brown, Red also add an ‘other’ option because they are green, and I’ve known people with eyes of differing colours, yes I know its a stupid example but its late and my eyes want to be sleeping not defining there colour.

5. I’m sorry I don’t understand the question.

   What the hells a whoozit? Its a common problem on the internet in copy & taxonomy (organizing the information into a categorization system other wise known in web design as a navigation structure) to use terms that only industry or company insiders understand, but the wounds cut deeper if its part of a direct question requiring them to understand your grammar in order to respond. There are some instances where the understanding of the terminology is an important positive qualifier for the conversation for example a job application requiring specific understanding, but they are more the exception to the rule then the rule. Use simple language that you granny would understand.

6. Don’t be a sneaky, nosey parker.

   I can not stand forms that are broken into many tiny pieces that require me to input a little bit of information then submit that bit go and make brew then come back and do a bit more and so on and so forth. Mind use I also get anxiety attacks when I’m faced with massive forms that want to know everything about me.

   As a rule if you don’t need to know something don’t ask, you’ll make my life easier but not making me fill in the name of my first dog. If you do need to ask lots of questions then break the form into groups and use something like a jQuery Accordian to allow me to collapse and show, perhaps even purposefully ignore certian parts of your form, maybe you would even want to develop a scrip that expand the next group of questions when you have finished the proceeding, but still allows me to read through all the questions at my desire.

7. Don’t play games, tell me where I went wrong, and tell me now.

   Imagine the slap you would want to give someone who did the following after you had just told them about your life and they replied with.

   Nope, you got some bits wrong I cant help you until you get them right…

   Any chance of a clue?

   Well you’ll have to look through what you’ve told me and guess what you said wrong, if you are observant ill let you know by raising my eyebrow but you’ll have to keep you eyes open and watch out for the eyebrow raising.

   Thwock, hows you’re eyebrow now I’ve slapped it?

   Even worse is his mate who will tell you that there was something wrong at the beginning and would you correct that bit then send the story on again, to then tell you that there was a little bit after that that was wrong and would you please correct that and send it again, you can only go through that cycle twice before you grab this chap and his mate with an aching eyebrow and bang there heads together (a slight disclaimer: I’m actually a bit of a piece loving digital tree huger and am not actually of a temperament that I would be compelled to physically abuse any person of piece of web code )

For some reason when I originally wrote this article it had another 3 points that seem to have been pushed out my ear sometime in the last 3 weeks and I cant find them in my mind, if I spot them around the place I’ll add them up there, not that anyone going to read the ramblings of a tired, beardy weirdy digital creative director rambling away at nearly 1am. but if you did read it and want to add you own form ramblings feel free to comment.