Web Form Design: Filling In The Blanks (2008) - Plot & Excerpts
This is by far the most useful technical book on my shelf. You can talk about UX and IA to developers and it just doesn't hit home until you specifically address web forms.If you ever get a chance to attend a conference where Luke is giving a talk, you should definitely attend. Many conference talks preach to the converted or simply whip up enthusiasm for the topic at hand, but Luke actually gives practical advice and backs up his assertions with a lot of data. I took one page of notes. I struggled to stay interested, as the writing is pretty dry and straightforward. It's somewhere between principles of good information architecture, cognitive science/usability, and a recipe book for techniques. But it never grabbed me because I wasn't seeing anything terribly radical. I've been an Information Architect and Interaction Designer for a few years now, and have dealt with my fair share of forms for social networking and B2B web applications. I was hoping to get something eye-opening, but it seemed basically like a review of relatively predictable choices if you know anything about how people read, think, and process information on a page. If you've new to web design, form design, web applications, IA, or IXD, this is a fantastic place to start. Definitely read it if you've built or designed less than five forms before, and review it if designing forms and web applications is part of your daily grind, which it is for me. I think he does a nice survey of the different elements of a form and it's certainly a responsible and thorough book.
What do You think about Web Form Design: Filling In The Blanks (2008)?
Good, useful, at times a bit surprising. I now consider myself much better informed about forms.
—seema
Everything you need to know about designing the best possible forms.
—JayJanay
Possibly one of the most influential books I have ever read.
—wendyae
