Forms that Work – Interview with Caroline Jarrett (podcast)
June 20th, 2009 | Posted in Podcasts 3 Comments »
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Length: 11 min.
In this podcast, Caroline Jarret talks about her new book, Forms that Work: Designing Web Forms for Usability, which she co-authored with Gerry Gaffney. Forms she discusses go beyond merely the type of IRS forms you fill out at tax time. Every website usually has some online form to collect information from users, from registration information to subscription information to purchasing information.
Caroline talks about the perceived value users must feel in order to part with their precious personal information. She explores why people dislike forms, and how companies can get around these dislikes to increase the usability of their forms, moving beyond appearance and layout and instead focusing more on relationships and conversation.
See the companion website to Forms That Work.
Buy Forms That Work: Designing web forms for usability from Amazon.
Tags: caroline jarrett, forms, stc conference, usability, web usability
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The podcasts I record for I'd Rather Be Writing cover the latest trends in technical communication. I interview tech writing luminaries around the world as well as record STC presentations and other audio content. You can subscribe to podcast specific feeds using the subscription information below.
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It would be great if forms could be formatted in an interesting way because its really boring to fill forms writing the same info again and again…the companies would benefit lot from it..
I too agree with Robert if the formatting in the form is done in an interesting and well manner, then it would have been much helpful.
There are so many ways to mess up a simple form. Asking for too much, poorly grouped field types, tab order not placed, on and on…