Web based forms-Rant!

Orionaut

Orionaut

Orionaut

Soldato
Joined
2 Aug 2012
Posts
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I dont know if any of you are involved in actually designing these things. But if you are WHY DO YOU DO IT THAT WAY?

By "That Way" I mean the way that you cannot see what is required on "page two" until after "page one" is filled in and entered!

There are forms like this all over the place from HM on line tax to even doing simple shopping.

It is really annoying (indeed down right inconvenient) not being able to check through the form first in order to ensure that you have all the information on hand to complete it before starting to do so.

(When the on line tax was first introduced thousands of people ran into difficulties because the system would time out while they were looking for stuff and then lock them out unable to log back on)

Is there some fundamental reason why these forms cannot be made more user friendly or is it just sheer bloody mindedness.
 
Also please put United Arab Emirates after the UK in the country lists.....they're causing me an extra keystroke every time haha!:p
 
"Please correct the mistake highlighted in red below. Oh, and we have cleared all the other fields on this form too, just to annoy you".

A lot of things like this are bad design due to a lazy requirements capture process, or simply a really bad evolution from a paper system. There is no reason at all that an online form needs pages, it can all be displayed on one screen easily. The concept of pages only exists because the paper it replaced had them. I bet you would find that your 2 page HMRC form is designed that way because the old paper form had 2 pages.
 
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It is a usability design issue. Multi-page forms should have back and forward arrows and a train-stop style pictorial so you know which page of the form you are on.
 
skyripper said:
It is a usability design issue
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This, times infinity with a dash of public sector cronyism.

All the governmental website services portal are a usability disgrace because they give the development contracts to mates for mates rate millions. The gash designs they come up with are an afront to anybody with an ounce of common sense, let alone anyone actually accustomed to usability testing.
 
Skeeter said:
"Please correct the mistake highlighted in red below. Oh, and we have cleared all the other fields on this form too, just to annoy you".
Click to expand...

That's just straight-up bad programming.

A lot of things like this are bad design due to a lazy requirements capture process, or simply a really bad evolution from a paper system. There is no reason at all that an online form needs pages, it can all be displayed on one screen easily. The concept of pages only exists because the paper it replaced had them. I bet you would find that your 2 page HMRC form is designed that way because the old paper form had 2 pages.
Click to expand...

There are plenty of reasons why a form might have been designed in multiple pages - one would be that the form performs some kind of validation or processing between each step, that the programmer couldn't or didn't want to do in the web browser. Another might be that the form doesn't use or cannot rely on Javascript/AJAX, and splitting the form into multiple stages allows the programmer to save the form state as you go, in case of a browser crash or connection failure of some kind.

I'm not saying those are good reasons in 2015, just that they are possible ones. And all of the issues would be solved with clear information at the start of the form process telling you what you'll need to fill it in!
 
Forms should always be multi-page if long enough, for performance and usability reasons. Don't forms normally have a "Before filling out this form, you will need ... " sort of precursor? I do agree though, a good 75% of forms are made in an absolutely terrible way, and I do spend a large amount of my working life making them (the good kind...)!
 
What's your problem with multi page forms? If it's a long form it makes sense to split it over different pages.

The not re-filling completed data entries is just bad coding though, no excuse for that.
 
Lots of websites are really poorly designed. Which is a shame really, as it's simply loosing them custom.

For example I was using the OcUK shop website on Sunday evening. It kept telling me that I hadn't completed all fields. But I had the Delivery Address, Delivery Method, Payment Type, Card Number, all correctly entered. Normally it asks to choose a delivery day (which I don't see the point of when you've already selected DPD Next Day), but for some reason that field wasn't showing. After a couple of attempts I then switched browser and got a step further. This time I get to the next page where you enter the card security number, but then it comes up saying that the address is wrong. For the address step there's three addresses shown, all with different first names but the same actual house (this is because multiple family members at the same house user the same website login). For the billing address step it only shows the first line of the address, not the name. So I know that I've selected the delivery address that matches the card I'm using (in my name), but then have to guess which billing address has the right name. A couple of attempts later and it's right. Now finally I can place the order, right? Nope, MasterCard Secure Code blocked the transaction as the retailer has a red flag against them for a high level of fraud. Argh.
Opened up another tab, and 1 minute later I've got an order confirmation email from a competitor. Yes they were £15 more expensive, but I've just wasted 15 minutes of my life.
 
I filled in a multi page government form once, I think it was for the useless 'tards at the DVLA.

At the end It asked me to PRINT the form and post it to them, there was no Submit button!

I didn't have a printer :mad:

*flips desk*
 
yep, another couple of things which annoy me

Online Chat Support - EVERYONE on an online chat system is totally unable to help. Sorry sir you need to phone up for that. The only thing they do is read what's already on their website. What's the point

Contact Us form......other than OCUK, they NEVER NEVER NEVER get back to you. EDF Energy for example. Send then an email or web form....and you won't hear back.

Capacha - LOL, I need say no more on that
 
Captcha's are amazing...

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Redgie said:
Forms should always be multi-page if long enough, for performance and usability reasons. Don't forms normally have a "Before filling out this form, you will need ... " sort of precursor? I do agree though, a good 75% of forms are made in an absolutely terrible way, and I do spend a large amount of my working life making them (the good kind...)!
Click to expand...

Theres a difference between sections and pages. Well designed long web forms will, like you say, have validation and saving etc. It sounds like the OPs has just arbitrarily got 2 pages, with no visibility of each from each other, and no 'heads up' on whats needed.
 
bitslice said:
I filled in a multi page government form once, I think it was for the useless 'tards at the DVLA.

At the end It asked me to PRINT the form and post it to them, there was no Submit button!

I didn't have a printer :mad:

*flips desk*
Click to expand...

Print to PDF? :confused:
 
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