Simple Forms Improve Usability
Make your forms short and simple if you really want users to fill it. That sentence is a mix of common sense and usability principle. Lets see an example.
Live Documents is a new web based office suite, so it has already many competitors. Why making the sign up process complicated. Don’t ask for too many details, why would you need people’s names for a try out of your product?
They use improper wording too, asking the people for an “Email Id”. What is that? My email address or what?
They also placed a nerdy and unnecessary comment at the bottom of the form, telling users that passwords are protected by the “SHA 256 hash algorithm”. Who cares?! You don’t have to include in your interface comments about how powerful your application is, at the end that’s going to confuse users.
Mojaz, a feed aggregator, has a better usability approach making it simple. Just enter your email.
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Popularity: 9% [?]
It’s amazing how often we ignore to make forms easier to use. One of major dislikes is when a form’s error messages are written in a technical voice.
“Error: Incorrect E-mail Address.”
Talk about disconnecting people.