Using Eye Tracking To Analyse Form Design
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The document discusses various usability considerations for designing online forms, including: - Users have a "narrow focus" when reading forms, looking mainly at labels and the left side of fields. - Label placement above or right-aligned works best according to studies, though it depends on form complexity and user goals. - Required field indicators are best placed at the top of fields rather than at the end. - "False end" screens without fields can cause users to stop prematurely. Guide users around these or save for the true end.
![Question time Caroline Jarrett [email_address] 01525 370379 I’m a consultant, hire me: Consultancy: www.effortmark.co.uk Training: www.usabilitythatworks.com Free stuff: Forms advice: www.formsthatwork.com Editing: www.editingthatworks.com Columns: www.usabilitynews.com “Caroline’s Corner”](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/ukupafeb09carolinejarrettvisualforms-090325153320-phpapp01-091001074930-phpapp02/85/Using-Eye-Tracking-To-Analyse-Form-Design-30-320.jpg){kind=tracking}
Using Eye Tracking To Analyse Form Design
- 1. Label placement in forms Caroline Jarrett and other time-consuming forms controversies FORMS CONTENT
- 2. A bit about me: Caroline Jarrett My paid-for work: Consultancy: www.effortmark.co.uk Training: www.usabilitythatworks.com My free stuff: Forms advice: www.formsthatwork.com Editing tips: www.editingthatworks.com Columns: www.usabilitynews.com “Caroline’s Corner”
- 3. And now, a word from our sponsor Redish (2007) “ Letting go of the words: writing web content that works” Morgan Kaufmann Jarrett and Gaffney (2009) “ Forms that work: Designing web forms for usability” Morgan Kaufmann
- 4. Sneak preview: next UX magazine is on forms Caroline and Gerry have co-edited the next issue of UPA’s User Experience Magazine Planned articles include: Where users look for help on forms Case study of a complex government form Case study of making a form accessible A forms manager’s perspective on forms and a whole lot more Free to UPA members: www.upassoc.org
- 5. Where people look on forms Reading forms is different from using them The ‘narrow focus’ effect – and what it means for placing labels
- 6. Reading forms is different from using them
- 7. Are my observations confirmed by eye-tracking? A look at some heat maps Examples thanks to permission from Ian Roddis, Head of Online Services, The Open University
- 8. Ordering a prospectus User has chosen a prospectus Postcode lookup for the address
- 9. One person’s heat map Small green dots show narrow focus on labels and left end of fields Red crosses show clicks
- 10. An aggregate Narrow focus on the easy questions at the top Gets messy further down: harder questions, more answers to consider
- 11. The ‘narrow focus’ means big jumps for the users’ eyes.
- 12. Mario Penzo’s recommendation: “Place labels above or right-align them” Your address Your city Company you work for Number of colleagues Penzo, M (2006) Label Placement in Forms http://www.uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000107.php Your address Your city Company you work for n o of colleagues Name Surname Age City
- 13. Easy questions and hard questions prompt different patterns of reading Users glance at populated answers Users look mostly at the left end of the answer space for easy questions Users read complex instructions quite carefully... ... provided they are on the way to their goal
- 14. Update: Labels above the fields may be no faster than right aligned labels Das, McEwan and Douglas investigated label placement Using eye-tracking to evaluate label alignment in online forms , October 2008 NordiCHI '08: Proceedings of the 5th Nordic conference on Human-computer interaction: building bridges Chose a simple form with simple questions Found no difference between labels above the fields and right-aligned labels
- 15. A section of a form where I think left-aligned labels really are necessary
- 16. Users can survive a lot
- 17. Decide on where to put your labels according to your users, their goals, and the questions Your users and their goals .... Your questions ... Put the labels ... Willing to reveal the answers; filling in the form helps them to achieve a goal Simple, only a few of them Above Simple but lots of them Right-justified Complex Left-justified Unwilling to reveal answers or reluctant to fill in the form Simple or complex Left-justified (you’ll need more explanation)
- 18. Let’s stress about details Colons at the end of labels? Sentence or title case? Required field indicator?
- 19. Colons at the ends of labels are a matter of considerable debate Pick one style. Stick with it. It’s not worth arguing about. http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article3200.asp and http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article3112.asp
- 20. Sentence or title case? Sentence case wins. (But only just). This is sentence case This is Title Case This Is Capitalisation Of Each Initial Letter ISO-9241 part 17 says "Initial upper-case (capital) letter for field labels: To facilitate readability, the text field labels begin with an upper-case letter. The rest of the label should contain lower case (small) letters except for cases where the label is a logo, an acronym or language convention that requires each word in the label to begin with a capital letter.“ Sentence case is slightly more legible due to familiarity It’s not worth changing a big suite of forms to fix this http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article2594.asp
- 21. Required field indicator? Miriam Frost Jungwirth: “ I was once charged with testing that. Seriously. $10,000 of manhours testing asterisk placement. There was no difference in user performance. At all.“ I’m a little more interested in this discussion: Indicators placed to the right of the field are likely to be invisible Put the text describing the indicator at the top of the fields (that is, not at the end of the form and not in the instructions) Use the same indicator in both places (text and next to required field) Use the alt-text ‘required’ (not ‘asterisk’) Always indicate required; don’t switch to indicating optional If you feel the urge to indicate optional, use the full word ‘optional’ Do not use colour on its own as an indicator Miriam Frost Jungwirth, posting on CHI-WEB, 19 April 2007 There’s a theme developing here ....
- 22. An example of required field indicators at the wrong end of the field
- 23. An example of required field indicators using colour alone
- 24. Two ways to trip up your users 1. It’s not OK and I don’t want to Cancel 2. ‘False ends’
- 25. Buttons really do matter to users.
- 26. 1. Label the button with what it does. 2. If the user doesn't want to do it, don't have a button for it. “ OK” works – if it makes sense to say “OK” at that point “ Reset” probably doesn’t work Reset Button: INPUT TYPE=RESET An INPUT element with `TYPE=RESET' represents an input option, typically a button, that instructs the user agent to reset the form's fields to their initial states. The VALUE attribute, if present, indicates a label for the input (button). When you are finished, you may submit this request: <input type=submit><br> You may clear the form and start over at any time: <input type=reset> http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html-spec/html-spec_8.html#SEC8.1.2.8
- 27. ‘ False ends’: if it feels like the end of the conversation, users will stop
- 28. ‘ False ends’: if it feels like the end of the conversation, users will stop
- 29. Avoid screens in the middle of forms that have no fields for user entries Option 1: save a ‘false end’ screen for the true end of the conversation Option 2: include a question that guides users around the ‘false end’ screen
- 30. Question time Caroline Jarrett [email_address] 01525 370379 I’m a consultant, hire me: Consultancy: www.effortmark.co.uk Training: www.usabilitythatworks.com Free stuff: Forms advice: www.formsthatwork.com Editing: www.editingthatworks.com Columns: www.usabilitynews.com “Caroline’s Corner”