When users fill out a form, they are actually filling their knowledge into it. To design an efficient form, the key is understanding how users find the knowledge to fill, and where does that knowledge come from.
I’d like to borrow the theory from Don Norman. He puts forward the idea of two knowledge types in his book The Design of Everyday Things: knowledge in the world and in the head. Although Norman is describing the knowledge of how to interact with the users interface, it’s really similar when it comes to filling knowledge into the form.
Knowledge in the world is the information exists in the world. It is readily but it takes time to find and slows down the process. Users need to get the object, get the information from it and then fill it in.
Knowledge in the head is knowledge in the human memory system. It is readily available like name, oneself’s mobile number, and nationality. So at most times, users could fill in this kind of fields effortlessly. But memory is not always accurate.
From designer’s perspective, there’s not much we can do to knowledge in the head. Because it highly depends on users’ memory. We can’t intervene much in the process of users’ recalling. While knowledge in the world is where UX design will shine.
Design for knowledge in the world — make it more accessible
Knowledge in the world could be from digital world, like another app. In this case, we might help by:
- Provide link-and-launch. For example, a form requires the phone number of users’ parents. Users mainly get this by 1.going to the address book, 2.finding their parents’ number, 3.copying and pasting it into the form. In this case, adding a feature that allows users to link and launch the Contacts and select their parents helps shorten the process.
- Provide smart recognition. Smart recognition helps speed up users’ copy-and-paste process when we couldn’t provide link-and-launch. It allows users to copy and paste a batch of information at once. After that, the system will recognize it, separate it, and fill them in the respective fields automatically.
For example, when making a transfer, users need to fill in payee information containing name, bank, and account number. Users receive this batch of information from the payee on WhatsApp. Using smart recognition, they only need to copy and paste once and get all the fields done, without switching apps back and forth, as well as copying and pasting several times.
3. Insert necessary guidance. Sometimes users need further guidance to know what they should fill in a form. Users might need to interpret the guidance based on the context. For example, in a form where staffs apply a discount for customers, staffs need to follow a guide to calculate the discount. If we insert the guide into the form, it will save the time of opening the guide and checking back and forth.
Knowledge in the world could be from tangible world, like a credit card. In this case, we might make a difference by:
- Provide OCR. OCR helps recognize and extract texts or numbers from a photo efficiently. It could be of great help when users need to input card numbers. In a platform provides OCR, users can simply take a photo of their card, then the OCR will extract card number automatically.
Since the OCR is not always perfectly accurate, it is better to provide a convenient way for users to double-check.
2. Provide guidance if needed. For the information that requires users to find somewhere else, providing a guidance telling users where they could find it can accelerate the process. For example, if the form requires CVV number, show users they can find it as a 3-digit number on the back of their credit card with an illustration.
As for knowledge in the head, we could help users to recall it easier by providing pre-fill, search, and selection options. But this is not where design plays a big role.
How to design an efficient form — — the key is to learn users’ filling process and then improve it. Always ask how users know what they should input. This is where UX designers really come into their own.
