
Web forms design guidelines: an eyetracking study - nreece
http://www.cxpartners.co.uk/thoughts/web_forms_design_guidelines_an_eyetracking_study.htm
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NathanKP
I think that the most brilliant idea in the article is that of not using
asterisks to indicate required fields. Instead put the word "Optional" in the
field and have it clear when the user clicks on the field. (Screenshots in the
article)

That is a very elegant and simple solution.

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ams6110
It's my gut feeling that asterisks are so commonly used to indicate required
fields that most users have come to understand their meaning. Nevertheless I
also like the "optional indicator in the field" idea, and I also agree with
the advice in the article to only ask for required fields. In other words, if
a field is optional, give strong consideration to omitting it from the form
entirely.

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NathanKP
_If a field is optional, give strong consideration to omitting it from the
form entirely._

I totally agree. In that case less is more. You want users to go through a
sign up form quickly and be able to get started. You can always provide a
settings panel on the other side for adding extra, optional information.

By keeping those fields off the signup form you make things easy and fast for
new users.

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roryokane
These are some helpful conclusions, but I'm not sure how much they can be
trusted. The article says they tested with eight participants, each
participant filling in two of the four forms. That's a pretty small amount of
data to make recommendations on.

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Barnabas
From 2000 (gasp), here's an article from Jacob Nielsen on why you only need to
test with 5 users: <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000319.html>

More recently, here's a related article on Multiple-user Simultaneous Testing,
when and why you'd test with more people and how to actually do that:
<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/multiple-user-testing.html>

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fun2have
Some in Academia have debunked that testing with 5 is enough... See
[http://uxexchange.com/questions/328/ideal-number-of-
candidat...](http://uxexchange.com/questions/328/ideal-number-of-candidates-
for-user-testing/380#380)

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bham
I'd love to find an eye-tracker and play with it to see what it is _I_ tend to
look at. Anyone have any experience?

 _Chui Chui loves food, and is very fond of sugared squid!_

Good to know!

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Estragon
Yeah, I have this thing called a "visual cortex" which provides me with
instant feedback on what I'm looking at. If you don't have one, get one! It's
incredibly useful.

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daleharvey
this is a really good study, its nice to have someone sit and think really
hard about those seemingly trivial decisions that can really affect a sites
usability, like not using asteriks for required fields.

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aresant
The way to establish "guidelines" IMO is to prove what works the best with A/B
testing.

The article provides interesting ideas, but little value in real world
application as ultimate business value from form design guidelines should =
form completion.

