Comments on: Typedia Forms http://www.gettheeye.com/typedia-forms/ A series of articles about making software feel good. Thu, 22 Jul 2010 14:12:00 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Zack http://www.gettheeye.com/typedia-forms/#comment-30 Zack Fri, 28 Aug 2009 23:21:21 +0000 http://www.gettheeye.com/?p=1114#comment-30 I'm glad the critique was helpful. I'm often reluctant to write critiques for fear of offending someone. Forms are an often overlooked part of a design, but the difference between a good one and bad one is huge. I've been showing the Typedia edit form to the rest of my team as an example of the type of forms I wish we designed. Would it be possible to stop unchecking the "This typeface is part of a family" checkbox from clearing the family information? It could just hide the fields and then show them if the user checked the box again. You wouldn't need to delete the family information and it would be there if the user changed their mind. I’m glad the critique was helpful. I’m often reluctant to write critiques for fear of offending someone.

Forms are an often overlooked part of a design, but the difference between a good one and bad one is huge. I’ve been showing the Typedia edit form to the rest of my team as an example of the type of forms I wish we designed.

Would it be possible to stop unchecking the “This typeface is part of a family” checkbox from clearing the family information? It could just hide the fields and then show them if the user checked the box again. You wouldn’t need to delete the family information and it would be there if the user changed their mind.

]]> By: Jason Santa Maria http://www.gettheeye.com/typedia-forms/#comment-29 Jason Santa Maria Fri, 28 Aug 2009 22:46:50 +0000 http://www.gettheeye.com/?p=1114#comment-29 This is a great write-up, definitely well considered and thoughtful. There's not enough of this happening online, and I thank you for this critique. The Add/Edit form was easily the most time consuming piece of the site. I plan to post something about the first iteration of it (it's comical how awful it is by comparison). We labored over this page so much because it's the most key point of interaction to the site and getting people to participate. I can address a few of your points: #2 I actually had combined these two in an earlier iteration and the system message helped direct your attention a bit better and strengthen the messaging system. For instance, when you save the page, the page refreshes and the message reads that your changes have been saved. But, you're still on the Edit page, so the title needs to stay intact as "Edit a typeface". Having them split gave us much more flexibility. #3 Yep, we originally had the checkbox as just a normal checkbox, but found that it was actually way too easy to uncheck it by accident and not realize it. So we decided to make it a much more conscious action. And whoops, that warning message should be red like a real warning :) #5 We didn't put a resizer on the Background field because most modern browsers have this built into their UI by default now, and it's one less bit of javascript to include on an already JS heavy page. #6 The cancel button is an interesting idea. I've only heard this from one other person so far. Obviously, I'm so used to the form now that it's second nature to just trash or erase a field to "cancel" things. I usually tend to avoid placing cancel and reset kinds of buttons in forms because I'm one of those people that always seems to hit them by accident. With all of that said, I'd definitely be interested in ways to improve this form, possibly by conducting some testing with different options. As I've said, this was a very thoughtful critique and I appreciate the time you put into it. I hope you'll do more too :) This is a great write-up, definitely well considered and thoughtful. There’s not enough of this happening online, and I thank you for this critique.

The Add/Edit form was easily the most time consuming piece of the site. I plan to post something about the first iteration of it (it’s comical how awful it is by comparison). We labored over this page so much because it’s the most key point of interaction to the site and getting people to participate. I can address a few of your points:

#2 I actually had combined these two in an earlier iteration and the system message helped direct your attention a bit better and strengthen the messaging system. For instance, when you save the page, the page refreshes and the message reads that your changes have been saved. But, you’re still on the Edit page, so the title needs to stay intact as “Edit a typeface”. Having them split gave us much more flexibility.

#3 Yep, we originally had the checkbox as just a normal checkbox, but found that it was actually way too easy to uncheck it by accident and not realize it. So we decided to make it a much more conscious action. And whoops, that warning message should be red like a real warning :)

#5 We didn’t put a resizer on the Background field because most modern browsers have this built into their UI by default now, and it’s one less bit of javascript to include on an already JS heavy page.

#6 The cancel button is an interesting idea. I’ve only heard this from one other person so far. Obviously, I’m so used to the form now that it’s second nature to just trash or erase a field to “cancel” things. I usually tend to avoid placing cancel and reset kinds of buttons in forms because I’m one of those people that always seems to hit them by accident. With all of that said, I’d definitely be interested in ways to improve this form, possibly by conducting some testing with different options.

As I’ve said, this was a very thoughtful critique and I appreciate the time you put into it. I hope you’ll do more too :)

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