"As a matter of best practice, should forms on the web be designed to look like their paper equivalents? Why/why not?"
Do you know who designs the forms in the real world for most things? Information Designers? Interaction Designers? IAs? *NO!* Bureaucrats! These people have no idea how to actually design information for consumption and interaction. Go to this image: http://www.donateyourplane.com/IRS8283A.jpg Now image following - exactly - the information design and layout of this form. First - it would almost certainly have to be done in flash because of the complexity, density, and format of the information; Second, image what the eye-tracking tests for this might look like? Rorschach ink blots is the most likely candidate for what eye-tracking would reveal. There are no consistent scan lines. There is no clear path to completion. The eyes have difficulty separating the content from the actionable fields. The best place to start is read this book review on B&A I wrote about LukeW's Web Form Design, here: *http://tinyurl.com/6ryep9 *Then think about buying the book - every chapter ends with a list of best practices for web form design. I very much doubt there is an equivalent book for paper form design. The medium is the message :-)* Those are my thoughts. *-- ~ will "Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems" --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Will Evans | User Experience Architect tel +1.617.281.1281 | [EMAIL PROTECTED] twitter: https://twitter.com/semanticwill --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 1:34 AM, Jessica Enders <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote: > I've been involved in a few debates about this question lately and would > like to write an article summarizing the different positions. It would be > great if you could spend a few minutes emailing me or posting your personal > position on the following query: > > "As a matter of best practice, should forms on the web be designed to look > like their paper equivalents? Why/why not?" > > I recognise that this is a fairly "open" question but there are lots of > different ways that one could come at this issue and I'm keen to hear about > them all! Will send around a link to the article when done, for future > reference. > > Thanks in anticipation, > > Jessica Enders > Principal > Formulate Information Design > ---------------------------------------- > http://formulate.com.au > ---------------------------------------- > Phone: (02) 6116 8765 > Fax: (02) 8456 5916 > PO Box 5108 > Braddon ACT 2612 > ---------------------------------------- > > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
