In the fifth and last part of our ‘forming a form’ series we have decided to show two forms that are in our opinion, well formed and easy to use. After all, what’s the point in us blogging about how to do it without showing some cracking examples!

The forms below are our examples of well developed forms. The one below from the Alliance and Leicester website is on our list because:

• It has clear formatting with text areas close enough to the labels that you don’t lose track of what text area goes with which label!
• It auto fills 5 out of 7 of the questions cutting down on time required to answer.
• On that note, you are only asked for the bare minimum of information and no identifying personal information.
• It has clear labels. For example, asking for ‘Mortgage Amount Required’ rather than just ‘Mortgage’ (where the user could just be forgiven for answering Yes or No!)
• There are help tips with every question to aid the user through all of the steps.
• It is formatted correctly so if you tab through the questions you go through the form correctly.
• The calculate button is above the ‘reset’! I’ve lost count of the times I have accidentally cleared a form because the ‘reset’ was first!

The form below is from delicious.com and gets our vote because:

• It clearly shows the user that stage of the form they are at.
• There are only three stage so less opportunity to exit the website.
• Clear and clean formatting and a nice and compact form.
• Appears to be asking for the minum amount of information possible and although all fields are ‘required’ they really ARE required for an account!
• There are clear instructions as to what type of password is acceptable.

The only negative point to this is the captcha, I often find these to be relatively illegible and often cause problems during sign ups. Mind you, they can be forgiven as you have to minimise the d*mn spammers somehow!