2.20 Provide accessible, user-friendly, minimal web forms
Ensure forms are as minimalistic and friction-free as possible, reducing the impact of submitting data.
Criteria
- Simple forms: Machine-testable
Remove unnecessary forms and reduce form content to the minimum necessary to meet the user needs while satisfying the organization’s minimum requirements. Clearly communicate why a form is necessary, the value it provides, the number of steps required for completion, and what will be done with the collected data. Also disclose if the data will be shared with third parties.- Accessible Forms: Tips and Techniques
- Best Practices For Mobile Form Design
- Designing Efficient Web Forms
- Form Design for Complex Applications
- Form design: from zero to hero all in one blog post
- Form UX: How to Design a User-Friendly Form
- Forms Tutorial
- GPF – General Policy Framework (PDF) – 1.6 – Strategy (Data Collection)
- GPF – General Policy Framework (PDF) – 4.10 – UX and UI (Input Format)
- How Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Improve Digital Products
- Ultimate Guide to Accessible Form Design
- United Nations SDGS – Goal 1 – Poverty
- United Nations SDGS – Goal 10 – Inequality
- Functional forms: Machine-testable
Avoid using auto-completion or auto-suggest based on partial entry to conserve user bandwidth and reduce unnecessary server side requests. Support the use of helpful tooling, such as password managers, by not preventing autofill.- Autofill
- Autofill in action: real-world insights
- Don’t Get Clever with Login Forms
- GreenIT – 004 – Avoid autocomplete in favor of other techniques to facilitate user input
- How to turn off form autocompletion
- How to turn off password managers for fields
- Making password managers play ball with your login form
- Reducing the impact of autocompletion
Benefits
- Accessibility
Labeling your forms correctly and testing for accessibility and compatibility with a range of different devices and inputs reduces barriers. Autocomplete improves ease of use and efficiency for all use, especially those with additional accessibility needs. Well-labeled and accessible forms are more likely to be successfully completed. - Conversion
Building forms based on standards with ease of use and accessibility in mind boosts conversion, as more users are able to complete them. - Economic
Implementing more accessible and usable forms reduces frustration while increasing completion rates. This can reduce complaints, support costs, and abandonment. - Environment
Optimizing forms reduces the resources required to complete them, which reduces emissions. - Privacy
Collecting informed consent and providing helpful disclosures about cookies, data collection, and data processing within forms, alongside appropriate links to find further information in an accessible format, improves data privacy.
GRI
- Materials: Medium
- Energy: Low
- Water: Medium
- Emissions: Low