How to design an online form — Part 2 — The language

Part 2: The language

You may have read my previous article about reviewing forms. I stated there that the online form is a conversation, just slightly different than those we have in our everyday life. It’s a half-written script where the user is filling the gaps. It’s actually like with chat bots, but the other way and the truth is that unfortunately, people are paying way more attention to bots than forms. But we in our everyday life fill in more forms than talk to bots.

The language
In this article, I want to focus on the language. The problem often is that forms seem to be written in a language far from the one we use every day, what makes the filling in process difficult and uncomfortable.
Forms have got this odd power to trigger anxiety in some people. You don’t want your form to do that, do you?

Also quite often we have to think long to catch what form’s author had in mind and what the question is about and which answer is the most accurate.

There are few things which may help you write better forms, which people will fill in with ease and you’ll be able to collect information you need.

The audience

Before you start writing, think about the audience. There are many groups of people you want to target, but let’s use the easy example of professionals and members of the public.

Professionals
The task is quite easy as they most likely they speak the same language and know what you’re talking about. Although it always depends on what types of professionals you are addressing your form to. You may still be ok with the vocabulary you use, but you need to remember to be clear with any kind of technical description of actions they may need to perform.

General public
Here the main rules should be no jargon, no techy fuss, just simple step by step instruction and simple questions. Slightly more challenging but let you create a more universal form, suitable for people of all ages and from different backgrounds.

Tone of voice

Treat the form as a conversation and see the user as a partner in it. You shouldn’t be too official, because it makes the whole process too artificial and as a user, you feel out of place and in doubt. Official tone makes things more stressful and by talking in plain English you are shortening the distance you are giving the user a kind of a support, you’re closer to their comfort zones.
But you may consider a different approach, less easy going, if you work for a certain type of a business… such as a funeral home.

Do not exclude

Thinking about the audience you have to think about real people. The audience is not a mass, those are real people with their daily life, happiness, struggles and you should respect this. Good thing is that to be a decent person here you don’t have to do much (form-wise), writing a form in an inclusive way may be enough. (Although many people keep forgetting about that).

What inclusivity has in common with the form? You may ask. How often are you asked about your gender? It’s quite often irrelevant question but still present people are asking about that.
Sometimes, quite often when someone is filling the form on someone else’s behalf or if the form is asking questions in a 3rd person, the best way is to avoid hi/her and just write they. People will appreciate it. The thing is that not all the people fit into the binary world and we should respect it.

It’s also not a new concept, one of discussions covering this topics took place in 2012 on Oxford Dictionaries blog

“Some people object to the use of plural pronouns in this type of situation on the grounds that it’s ungrammatical. In fact, the use of plural pronouns to refer back to a singular subject isn’t new: it represents a revival of a practice dating from the 16th century.” quote from the Oxford Living Dictionary — read more here

If you write in English, you are lucky as many languages in a form of a verb indicate the sex of the person performing a certain action. The choice is limited: he/she but the default option in 99% is he. Imagine if you are a woman but have to fill in a form where they address you as a man… it’s not nice.

One task per question

If you want to ask about something, but it indicates few factors which have to be met, split this one question into few. You will avoid confusion and filter out people who do not meet the first factor and won’t bother them with answering irrelevant questions.

A great advantage of online forms is, that you can disclose next question depending on the answer for the previous one. It’s called progressive disclosure- a technique used also to keep the user’s attention on track and let them focus only on a present question/task, not on everything what waits for them.

Question asked in a wrong way:

Do you read books? If yes, write what book have you read recently

Question asked in a good way

Do you read books?
- yes
- no

If the answer is ‘no’ then the user goes to the next question in the flow. If the answer is ‘yes’ the user has a follow up question to give more precise answer:

What book have you read recently?

There’s no sense to ask everyone same questions, sometimes you have to ask one question to determine if there is a sense to continue asking about that issue or you should go to the next one.

Keep it simple and be the guide

If you have questions which are very complicated or you expect or need a certain answer you have a magical thing called a hint. This is a feature which let you add an additional guidance.
But again remember to keep it short and simple.

Humans are creatures who can prioritize certain things and think that other are so obvious that even not worth mentioning, but sometimes this is the exact information you’re asking about. Don’t be afraid to point it out.
Just kindly write what kind of information you expect them to write. You can do it in two ways:

• describe why you need this type of information
Write as many details as possible so we can give you best advice
• give examples they can refer to
such as… (and here you can list few main things they may refer to)

Use active verbs and stay positive

Put the person first. Forms are not filling itself, you need a person to do it. (Yes I know about auromation and stuff, but we are talking about forms for people)

Do not write that
The certificate has to be attached.

Talk directly to the user and tell them that:
You need to attach the certificate.

Push them to feel responsible for actions instead of creating an artificial situation. When you are saying that the thing has to do something- you’re using a passive form… you need to highlight the human factor.

It’s like with an emergency situation. When the accident happens someone can scream Police, police, call the police! But it’s so distant from people around, that no one feels responsible for it. When you make CPR and point out one person saying You have to call help now! the message is stronger and the person feels responsible.

Error messages

Sometimes things may go wrong, the user may overlook a question or write not the answer you expected or (and its the hardest) you are using a software which has got certain constraints and accept only input written in a specific way. It’s kind of popular with dates. You may have diferent ways to record the date:

• dd.mm.yyyy
• dd/mm/yyyy
• mm/dd/yyyy
• dd-mm-yyy

What you can do is to guide people by writing a hint. But people not always pay attention to the hint. If they write a date in a way they are used to and it’s not according to the pattern, validation may not allow them to complete the form if the error is detected. The solution to avoid it is to add a clear error message what will force them to write it in the correct way.

But to achieve that where you need to point out:
• where something is incorrect
• what actually is incorrect
• how they can fix it.

It will help your users to localise the issue and make amends. It will also make them feel that they are able to control the situation. Remember, clear information is half way to success.

Consistency in naming

In school, they were teaching us to use versatile vocabulary, not to repeat same words few times. But it doesn’t work well in forms. You have to be as clear as possible and calling things you ask about with different names will only confuse person filling in a form.
Decide what the best name is and stick to it.

I was tempted to write the user, the person, an individual, to make this text more interesting to real. But the point of this post is to present best practice in writing clear messages.

SUMMARY
Remember that your task is to get relevant information, it’s not a competition who is cooler, who looks more ‘professional’.
It’s the matter of understanding- will the user understand what you ask for and will give you the information you’re craving for?
Putting the user first shows your professional attitude.

Next time when you’ll be designing or reviewing the form remember those few things
• the audience

• think about the audience
• consider a tone of voice
• do not exclude
• ask about one task per question
• keep it simple and be the guide
• use active verbs and stay positive
• use clear error messages
• be consistent with naming

Thanks for reading this post. If you do not agree with my suggestions I’m happy to listen to your opinion.

If you review your form with this what you’ve just read in mind, I’m curious about your conclusions.

I’m bad with regular writing but I will try to write the next post about the structure of the form, as I believe that the good form is like a story.