Designing available Forms: a three-tier model of a form

Design when you fill out a form on paper or on a computer, why do you often say ' I'm not very good at filling out the forms ' or ' I'm bored with filling out the paperwork '? There must be a reason for this, there must be something to make people feel this way.

In the ' Three layer model ', a form has three properties: perception (Layout), dialog (question and answer), and relationship (the structure of the task).

Analyzing a form with a three-tier model allows us to better analyze existing problems and propose ways to make forms more available.

Objective

If you want to make an available form, the first step is to understand what the form is. By parsing the properties of a form, improving its various aspects, and then synthesizing these improved elements, you can improve the results of the form as a whole.

These ideas derive from my assessment of various types of forms, mainly to improve the usability of the IRS (inland Revenue) tax form. Tax forms are an extreme example, and usually no one is particularly willing to fill out such a form.

This article first discusses the form, and then further explains the three dimensions of the form: Perceptual properties (Layout), dialog attributes (questions and answers), and relationship properties (the structure of tasks).

What's the form?

Sometimes, when I ask the question of who is dealing with forms all day, it turns out that the problem is not as good as it seems to be, and that the answer usually has a long, ' hmm ... ', ' I think ... ', ' and ', ' I say ' the form is used to collect information ', or ' Collect questions and answers ' et cetera.

I suspect that the question I asked was flawed because the answer was so obvious. We notice that the form is a form because it looks like a form. Try the following two examples. Two are all made of a lot of marks of paper: one is in color strokes, one is after three copies of a piece of paper. Which one is the form?

Is this it?

Or this?

The answer to this question is not difficult for most people. Even if the contents of the second piece of paper are not clear at all, we can suddenly see that the paper is a form: because it looks like a form. In this form, we can see that there are many spaces, spaces in front of the text, obviously, the space is to write the answer to the place, the text in front of the space should be the problem. A form is something that looks like a form. This is the perception layer of its form: its appearance.

Perceptual Layer

The perceptual layer starts at the paper or screen. On paper, we can see the size of the task: a piece of paper, or a small stack of paper. On the screen, we are more difficult to understand the size of this form task. I suggest providing some clues to help fill in the form, such as adding some notes: "First page, total four pages" or "three parts of the list". It is a good choice to let the filling out of the form after the completion of the fill out the process is longer than they expect or difficult to accept.

Page elements

Next, we have the printed content-ink on paper, pixel on the screen. They tend to consider the text, lines, logos, and other elements on the form as three similar and sometimes intersecting groups:

1. Page Parts: This section is mainly on the edge of the paper, such as logos, form titles, page numbers, and toolbars.
2. Description: Words that are not directly related to questions and answers in the form, such as welcome words, descriptions of the form, some help descriptions, etc.
3. Paired questions and answers: This is the question of the text section and the answers to the blanks, which may be divided into larger problem groups or sections.

Example

Let's take a look at the first part of the form. Begin by writing the name of the charitable organization, the time to establish it, the address (for a more clear explanation of the irrelevant address of the problem), and the title of the form. These are the ' page parts ' of the form

Next, we have a description of 34 words before the 1.1 problem starts, telling us how to fill out this form.

The question and Answer section starts with ' 1.1 Name of Centre ' (center name), followed by ' 1.2 address '. In many forms, the problem is not a complete problem, but a short sentence or a phrase to ask questions to answer the person who fills in the form.

The form can be written by hand or by typewriter, and the dots in one line are the places to tell the person who answered the question.

Page Parts

In my opinion, when a person who fills out a form has one, it is immediately possible to determine which elements belong to the group mentioned above at the first glance. In general, once you start filling in the form, you actually turn a blind eye to the part of the page. They will come back and look at these things when they need to. For example, when you need to call to inquire how to fill out this form, they will look back to find the phone number, then if there is no part of the page parts, there will be trouble.

Description

The person who fills in the form will read part of the description or full description. If she is familiar with the form, she skips the description and jumps to the quiz section as quickly as you can.

In general, I suggest that the section should be less than 100 words (Translator Note: Chinese is less than 200 words)--that is, the length of the summary section of this article. If you really need a long description at the beginning of your form, you can break it down into a few small pieces, with small headings and a few points. The person who fills out the form usually reads the subheadings quickly and skips the contents of the headline, but you do so at least to make the person aware that there is content under each headline and that they will come back to read it when they need it.

A pair of questions and answers

A pair of questions and answers make up a sequence of issues in a form. Before a person who fills in a form can begin to understand the question and answer it, she must be able to see the answers to the questions identified. At this point to note that the text should be clear and easy to read. For example, the contrast between text and background should be appropriate, do not use too complex fonts, the simpler the better the font, the font is large enough.

Move one layer forward.

Although the perceptual layer is the element that makes the form look like a form, it doesn't explain why the form is so difficult to design and make. As someone has said to me: "Not this form is difficult to fill out, but the problem is very difficult to answer."

Let's assume that the questions we give to the form-filling are clearly readable, and now we move one level further.

Dialog layer

A form is a document that asks questions and provides space for answers. This explains why people don't like to fill out forms. The person who fills out the form may not understand what the question is asking, or the space section is too small to fill in the answer, or you don't know which questions are relevant to them, or which answer is more appropriate or cannot be found. These are the ' questions and answers ' layers in the three-tier model.

I call this layer the "conversation" layer, because there are many similarities between the question and answer sequence in the form and the daily conversation.

The expression of meaning should be clear

This helps the person who fills in the form to better understand what the question is asking. Just like an ordinary conversation, if the two sides of the conversation have a common vocabulary and use these words to talk to each other, it will help to understand better. Let's take another look at the following example:

St Francis Leprosy Guild (St. Francis Leprosy Association) is a small Catholic charity that finances leprosy centers in the third world countries. Although the words ' Major religious superior of congregation or local Bishop (the principal religious affairs of the diocese) ' seem obscure, the Catholic people know exactly what it means.

But when the word is polysemy, the problem comes. In the following example, there are two issues in the form:

The charity wants to know how the centres find and treat leprosy patients in their communities through a system of unconventional services. "With what results (according to what effect)" the original intention of this question is to understand whether the local residents respond to their efforts.

However, the majority of the centers in the form of the answer to the 3.2 is: ' Rehabilitation and treatment ', 3.3 of the answer is ' good results '.

Find the answer

After understanding the problem, the person who fills in the form must answer it next step. There are some questions that are answered fairly quickly (e.g., your name?). , but some of the answers to these questions take time to think about it. As far as I'm concerned, filling out a tax form is not a problem, because I've had years of experience working with such forms, but the answer to finding a form problem from a variety of financial documents is another matter.

When designing a form, think about where the answer might come from. Is the answer that you want is already in the brain of the person who is filling in the form? Do they need to consult other people, or other institutions?

Answer the question

The final step in the dialogue layer is to fill in the form with the answers. Setting aside the size of the space appropriate for the answer will help the person who fills in the answer. Too little space is like cutting off the conversation when the person is still talking. In the previous example of the form, the space length of the name and address is the same, but usually the address should be much longer than the name.

However, the reservation space is too big also can have the trouble. The person who fill in the form will think that the answer question is so big, my answer is not so long, will I misunderstand your question?

In the online form, provide multiple-selection box or radio button to check the fill, you can save the time and energy of the person who fill in the table. Be aware, however, that the answer you provide is consistent with the answers that the applicant wants or needs to provide to you. In the form of the Leprosy Union mentioned earlier, we provided the following area of padding in the item number of doctor (doctor quantity):

This is not a problem for most treatment centers, but it has brought trouble to a central centre. Because the center has no doctors to visit, they usually take local residents who need treatment to a nearby hospital.

If you add the ' other ' option to the form, you can help users provide different answers that are more appropriate for their situation.

A consistent topic

In a face-to-face conversation with a friend, we usually jump from one topic to another, blending them together and then back to the original topic.

And the form is like an office meeting, it's best to talk about one topic at a time. It would be rude to jump back to the original question, and to ask two unrelated questions at the same time can be confusing.

It is a topic for the designer, but it may be two or more topics for the person who fills the form. In this leprosy union form, we asked about the treatment provided by each centre. This seems to be a topic. However, the treatment of leprosy is actually divided into three stages: to find lepers, to cure disease, and finally to help those who have been cured to learn how to cope with the disability caused by disease. Some people may soon be discharged and returned to society, while others may have to undergo long-term maintenance in the hospital because of the severity of the disability. Some centers provide all of the above treatment. Other centres provide only part of the work. So the single question that we asked was confusing them.

The order of the topic

The form imposes a sequence of dialogues on the person who fills the table. Think about the process of providing information to people sitting across the table, and then comparing the process of filling the same information in the form. When it comes to providing information, there are many possibilities for the conversation to change the order of the problem, to ask questions again, to deal with related issues, and to correlate unrelated topics. The form and the interview are actually the same-but the order of the problems in the form is fixed and the structure is set. The person who fills in the form must adapt.

The form problem that you fill out on paper is not so sharp, you fill in the back, and then return to the front of the part of no one knows. When filling out an online form, however, it can be difficult to save half of the form, or to work with the form in a different order than the form developer would have imagined.

And move up one level.

When someone says, "I'm not good at filling in a form," they're not confessing that they're having trouble reading, or thinking they're writing on paper or having problems with it. They usually think of the dialog layer of the form-though they will never use the word "dialog". What they mean is that they are "not good at" picking up a table, finding answers to questions, and dealing with the outcome of the process.

However, the dialog layer and the perceptual layer do not account for all of the form's problems. Why is it more worrying when the person filling out the tax return is to sign the bill than to sign it on a form that receives the parcel? The question on the two form is the same as the answer, except that the box to the signature position on the tax return is slightly larger. This problem seems to require a more level of solution.

Relationship Layer

The form represents one step in the distribution organization and the overall relationship of the person. I suggest using the term "task structure" to represent the division of labor between the issuer and the person who is represented by this form.

This relationship and task structure creates multiple choices for the person who fills in the form: Do you want to fill out this table, fill it out now, or fill it in later, throw it away or return it back. The result of filling in the form: The tax statement is late to pay a fine, the order to fill the correct can receive the goods.

Information exchange

The form creates an exchange of information. If an organization already has some information about the person who fills in the form, then it is better to give the information to the filling person to do some checking than to make the information available again.

Give an example. I recently received a letter of direct mail with a very "personalized" wording. "Dear Ms. Jarret, ..." wrote the letter, "your Effortmark company will be from ... Benefit ". Then I turned over the page and found a form behind me to fill in the name, address, company name, and so on, but apparently they already knew.

If the organization issuing the form can make the most of the information that it has already mastered, it will be able to improve the exchange of information on the form. The form should show the entry information that the user has completed to match the task that this form has undertaken. When the user is required to sign a new purchase agreement, it is not very appropriate to display the entire credit history of the user, but to have an old customer fill in the name and address of this information will appear more lost respect.

Power relations

The last element to consider in the form design is the power relationship between the form issuing organization and the person completing the presentation and completion of the form. Both the sales order form and the product registry ask for similar information: Product type, user name, address, and so on. Perhaps the order form requires knowledge of the payment information, and the registry requires an understanding of the purchase motives.

The order form is intrinsic to the purchase of the product, so it must be filled in. Even though the form is not liked by the person who fills it, he still fills in the list because he needs it very much. In this sense, the organization that sells this product holds power.

On the contrary, the return on the registry is very low. Customers already have this product, they can choose whether to fill in. At this point, the benefits of the form are low. Organizations that sell products always find ways to help customers fill them out by providing some benefits, such as filling them in and sending them back to the lottery, or receiving updated emails. At this time, the customer who buys the product holds the power. The change in the power relationship between the form's publisher and the person who fills it out can help the designer decide which information to collect. For example, if a company thinks its product buyer is likely to have a great interest in buying the product, it should be aware of its motives for buying the product, rather than when the product is registered.

Example

In the previous form of the Leprosy Union, power was vested in the charitable organization because they held the fund. They want the centers to apply: Many treatment centers have no other way to get funding, with just a little money to keep an unusual job. There are 65 patients living in a treatment centre in Tanzania, and their annual budget is less than 20,000 dollars.

The charity decided to continue asking for the same information as before, though they had mastered some of them. They believe that some familiar problems can be used to ensure that there are no problems with these centres. But they removed some of the useless questions and replaced them with questions about what had changed in the previous year. This will help the charity provide assistance to places that need more funding. The charity will also ask other sources of funding from these centres: this encourages the centres to proactively develop their own resources and also helps the charity determine how important their funding is compared to other resources.

This example shows the effect of the overall relationship of the publisher and the person to whom a form can represent, and how the choice of the problem is more complicated than the wording of the decision.

Mix these layers

Think about these three layers: paper, Questions and answers, task structure. I use the word "layer" because each layer is above the previous layer. There is no paper, there is no question and answer, no questions and answers will not convey the structure of the task. The word "layer" may be ambiguous. These layers are not the top and bottom two layers of a sandwich that is sandwiched between fillings, and it is best to consider these three layers as a packet of a cup of coffee: cups, coffee, and water.

This cup is the "paper" layer. A cup that chooses a good endpoint should be OK. Cups are necessary, but nothing inside is not a cup of coffee. Similarly, in a form, we have paper or screens, fonts, page parts, and color schemes-but this is not a form.

Coffee is the "question and answer" layer. It can be made with premium coffee, or with inferior coffee or mixed coffee. In the form, the designer adds questions, space for answers, considerations about the meaning of these things, and where the answer may come from. Designers can choose more accurate words, can change the order, add some questions, or remove some problems.

The hidden ingredient is water. In one place, water is added to coffee powder or instant tea. Water is an invisible ingredient-we simply assume that it exists, but the quality of the water is not good enough to make coffee, no matter how good-looking the cup is not used. Similarly, there is no task structure, that is, the reason for sending a form and the form to fill it out are not real forms. The form exists because there is a relationship between the form publisher and the person who fills it out, whether it's short or long term.

Finally, these three ingredients must be mixed together. When we use a leaky cup and drink a cup of low quality, dirty coffee, we evaluate the overall feeling, not each part of the distinction.

Increase availability through layers

To design a more usable form, I recommend starting with each layer.

Improve the relationship

Take a look at the whole relationship:

• Why are you asking these questions?
• Is this the right question in relation to this?
• Can you get this information from other sources?
• Are you trying to get the person to do the job that your organization can do?

Promote dialogue

Consider the form as a conversation:

• Ask questions in the correct order: The reason for filling out the form is in the front, what to do is put in the back.
• Consider where the answer to the question might come from.
• Classify the questions according to the source of the answer.
• Provide answers when possible, but let the person who fills in the form do not consider the answers you provide.
• Provides a blank size that fits the answer length.

Improving the perceptual layer

And finally, let's take a look at the perceptual layer:

• Use headings and colors to group different areas of the form.
• Expect users to start reacting to problems as quickly as possible.
• Do not expect the person in the form to get information in the page part
• Write the instructions carefully and be as short as possible.
• Use fonts that are easy to read

Conclusion

This three-tier model attempts to interpret forms from the appearance, question, and answer sequences of the form, and from the task body. Although the initial appearance is important, the question and answer sequence is the most obvious part of the form, but I think a good form requires a good task structure.