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March 26, 2001

Hi Creating Friendly Forms Readers,

Today's issue has some good free software:

KyLister (PC) - a mailing list software if you want to create your own newsletter, etc.

iMovie (MacOS X 2.1) - Create and edit home videos.

and

Zope (Unix) An Open Source application server, focusing on content management, portals, and custom services.

Additionally, we have included a good article on creating friendly forms. A friendly form is extremely important to implement on your website so that you do not alienate international visitors. Website builders in the U.S. are especially guilty of creating forms that require a 5 digit zip code and a 10 digit phone number. Most countries do not have a 5 digit zip and a 10 digit phone number. Therefore, any U.S. website developer ought to think about how they can make their forms friendlier and not drive away potential customers. That's what this article is about.

I hope that you enjoy this issue,

Best Wishes,

Pete,
Creating Friendly Forms Editor

Kylister v. 1.4.1 (51 Kb)
This program allows you to manage any number of mailing lists, each with any number of subscribers. This kind of software is necessary if you often write to special groups of people.

Then you can wonder what are the advantages of KyLister, compared to softwares like IE or Netscape, that can manage address books? Simply, each list in KyLister has its own set of parameters, entirely configurable. Developers writing to their users, club managers writing to their subscribers, people having miscellaneous groups of friends, etc., will see the advantage of sending emails via Kylister.

Additionally, with only one mouse click, you can change identity, depending on your recipients. The program also allows you to hide recipients email addresses in the message sent. KyLister is SMTP protocol compliant, and can send as many emails as you want with attached files optionally.

WebmasterFree.com/kylister.html


iMovie Plug-in pack
Creates effects & transitions for iMovie 2.0.1. Effects availible are Flash, Ghost Trails, Mirror, Mirror Advanced, N-Square. Transitions include Circle Closing, Circle Opening, Radial, Warp In, Warp Out, Wash In, Wash Out.

macwebmasterfree.com/imovieplugin.html

Zope v. 2.3.0 (4.2. Mb)
An Open Source application server, focusing on content management, portals, and custom services. Zope specializes in rapid deployment of rich services to diverse audiences. It is completely web-manageable. and includes a web server, a search engine, and transactional object database. It also allows site maintainers to extend "safe scripting" privileges to users.

An add-on component (also Open Source) called ZEO allows it to be scaled across an arbitrary number of servers as well.

LinuxWebmasterFree.com/zope.html

Creating Friendly Forms

On average I surf the internet about 40 hours per week. Each week I visit web sites that are, to put it politely, very frustrating. I am not just talking about the general design of the site. What am I talking about? Forms! I fill in loads each week but I generally see a lot more than I fill in. Why? See Below!

The form that is too long
When I visit a page with a form on, the first thing I look at is how long it is. Too long and my mouse is telling me to go to another site, and I'm not talking about my pet mouse. Now take a look at the forms on your site. Are they so long you are losing customers?

Remedy
One remedy is to have your form fields on a series of pages. It looks less daunting to the visitor answering a few questions on each page. Make sure that the form fields are completely necessary; do not ask a question that has already been answered.

If your customer has visited your web site before, allow them to use cookies which automatically fill in form fields that they have answered on a previous visit. Luckily the latest versions of Internet Explorer also help the customer fill in forms.

If you must ask them their billing address and delivery address, allow the option to tick a box saying same as billing address. The point is, make it as easy as possible.

Good layout
I will put my hands up, I am probably guilty of poor layout myself. I may have knowledge of the principles of good design but I am not particularly good at putting it into practice. I know thelayout of web sites and forms are very important and so should you.

Remedy
Make sure your form is not a cluttered mess. Clump all your fields together and your visitor is likely to get the dreaded "error message incomplete field". If your form is in any way complicated, then have help links next to each complex field. When people click on these help links a Javascript box opens with some concise text to explain the meaning of the field.

Required field please enter two letter state code
You probably all know by now that I am from the UK. However I buy a lot of products and services from US sites. A lot of the sites I visit blurt on about welcoming International customers. It is only when you come to a form or a payment page that you realize they have just not put any thought into it.

What do I mean?

They have required fields saying "enter your two letter state code". "Enter your national tax id". What am I meant to do, make a fictional one up and hope for the best? I'll give you an example, go to Microsoft bCentral and try and buy their Premium Marketing service. If you are a foreigner you will have to make up a two letter state code.

One simple way of solving the problem is on the first question asking which country they are from. If they are from outside the US the drop down menu should forward them to an alternative form.

Contact form versus e-mail link
It is mainly large companies that are guilty of this one. On their contact page they have a contact form. If the visitor cannot stand filling in forms he will just leave the site. Another common problem with forms is "Internal Server Errors" or a server going down suddenly. All these problems could lead to your visitor giving up on your company. I know the purpose of a contact form is so that all the necessary information is sent and it also helps you to direct e-mail to the correct department. However if it is losing you customers is it really necessary.

Remedy
Display a message on the form page. Something like this: "If you have any problems contacting us using this form then please use this e-mail link. Please try to include all the information that is displayed in the form".

We at the Editorial Team would like to thank all our readers for reading Creating Friendly Forms.

Sincerely,

Peter Thiruselvam
The Editorial Team