Web Design for ROI: Turning Browsers into Buyers & Prospects into Leads

Chapter 8. Forms

Â	“Why, a four-year-old child could understand this. Run out and find me a four-year-old child. I can’t make heads or tails of it.”	Â
Â	--Groucho Marx, Duck Soup

Forms are a way of life on the web. They’re on shopping sites, banking sites, social networking sites, and horoscope sites. They can be as simple as a humble login form or as critical and far-reaching as a financial account management form.

Organizations love forms. Forms put the burden of information gathering on the visitor, thereby saving the organization time and customer service costs. Visitors, however, aren’t so enamored with forms, generally viewing them with emotions running the unhappy gamut from boredom to impatience.

Why is this? One reason is that ...