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Application Development, User Experience Design, mobile
Web App Masters Tour: Form Field Design June 10th, 2010
No Comments Along with several other members of the NavigationArts User Experience Design team, I attended the Web App Masters Tour. Considering design in the Mobile space added an interesting new layer to a common design question:
When designing forms, the question always arises of “Where do I put the labels?” Some are proponents of left-aligning labels because, in the most languages, the user reads left to right with the text being left-justified. Some believe that when labels have a variable number of characters in a long form, that right-justification with a colon makes it easier to read (Fitts Law). Others write that placing the label on the top of the data field is the best practice, because when translating into different languages, the labels can become unpredictable in length.
In a presentation by Luke Wroblewski, author of Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks, Luke brought up another consideration – designing for mobile. In his presentation, he showed examples of forms with (option 1) labels to the left (either left-aligned or right-aligned) and those (option 2) with form labels above. When using mobile devices, those forms with option one often had their labels obscured, prompting the user to wonder “Now what information was I entering into this field?” In contrast, those with labels on top of the data field were in clear view. No doubt, I’ve made my decision on which way to design forms for the future.
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