Designing the Form

Having captured some key information about the form, we're ready to start designing it. We'll approach the topics in this section in the order in which you might like to consider implementing them.

We'll assume that you're designing a single form (or set of forms), disregarding locale. For international sites, you may decide to design different forms for different locations. This may cater for different representations of information such as addresses, different languages for the users (and therefore potentially different character sets as well), different currencies if you're dealing with money, and so on.

Before we start, however, we should make a quick note about something that crops up throughout the chapter: accessibility.

Accessibility

When designing your form , you need to take into account accessibility issues. Accessibility is important to understand when designing any web site, and forms are no exception. In this section, we'll be noting some important things to remember about accessibility. If you're not familiar with the topic, pick up a copy of Constructing Accessible Web Sites (Jim Thatcher et al, glasshaus, ISBN 1904151-00-0).

The aim of making a site accessible is that it should be available to the largest number of users possible. It's not just a case of making sure that users with disabilities can use the site, as is often thought; it can include considering those with older software or hardware and those who don't view images in their browser. Many of the issues we'll look at, however, do concern building a site that can be accessed by visitors with disabilities.

There are various sets  of guidelines relating to accessibility. These include:

· The Web Accessibility Initiative's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, Version 1.0, May 5, 1999,
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/.

· The Access Board - Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Standards, 36 CFR Part 1194, Web- based Intranet and Internet Information and Applications (1194.22),
http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/guide/1194.22.htm.

       The IBM Web Accessibility Guidelines, Version 3.0, August 20, 2001,
http://www-3.ibm.com/able/accessweb.html.

The second of these corresponds to Section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act. In 2000, the United States government legislated that all federally purchased technology products had to meet these guidelines from 25 June 2001. Other countries are quickly following suit in enforcing similar legislation.

We'll be addressing some of the concerns that you should be aware of when designing forms to ensure that they are accessible.

Before You Design the Form
Usable Forms for the Web
Selecting Types of Controls