In short, I'd say "No, they shouldn't". The biggest reason is that paper and computer screens imply different restrictions and affordances in the kinds of information you can enter, and how you enter them. For example, if you design a paper form that's 1.2 pages long, you're going to try to reshuffle the layout to get it down to 1 page, because a one page form (might) seem easier to fill out, and would cost less to print (1-sided vs 2-sided or 2 pages). You can also do things in a web form that you can't do on paper - hide lengthy instructions, consolidate lists of items into dynamic data rows that appear as you need them. Instead of providing 5 rows of "dependents" on a tax form, for instance, a web form might likely give me 3 rows and a button to "add another dependent".
Federal US tax forms seem to be somewhat of an exception to the above rules, but only because people may need the visual reminder of what they're filling out. Turbotax, I believe, fills out the same information that the tax form does, but doesn't look like it. However, they have always provided you a link to "view the actual form" with your data on it, in case you want to make sure you're filling it out right. It's 10:30 on the beach, so the above probably rambles more than it needs to, but hopefully it answers your question... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=31603 ________________________________________________________________ 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
