Brian Crescimanno writes about designing forms with some sense on A List Apart. Only a handful of web developers follow these rules. Though a whole lot more know about them. Brian talks about field types, lenghts, required fields, error messages and returning users to the form after submission! His advice is clear, to the point and true.
But what stops an average programmer (or designer) to implement them?
- First, programmers think this is the job of the designer. And designers think this is really programmer’s part.
- Second, ignorance! Some people simply don’t know that some human beings are going to use what they are coding. Normal human beings that are not programmers themselves! They also do not know what’s a good practice and what’s bad.
- Third, most project managers are driven by delivery dates of the project. Basically, they are keeping only their customer in mind, not their customer’s customer.
- And fourth, an average programmer is so busy figuring our the business logic of the app, that usability gets pushed to the end of the project. And then that end never comes.