Level: Introductory Peter Seebach (crankyuser@seebs.plethora.net), Writer, Freelance
05 Apr 2005 When people design Web forms, they often overlook some great sources of professional expertise in the world -- the existence of form design techniques with which nearly all users are familiar. This month, the cranky user looks at form design and management.
With the deadline to file taxes only a few days away in the United States (U.S.), tax forms are everywhere because most people have to fill one out. Tax forms can carry lessons that apply directly to Web page design, especially as you consider the design of forms. That's because these tax forms are familiar to many users of varying skill levels. The sole function of a large branch of the U.S. government is to develop these forms -- form designers can derive a great deal of advantage from the expertise and history of tax form design.
In this month's column, I look at ways in which the Internal Revenue Service (sometimes known as the IRS or the Infernal Revenue Service) has already faced, in whole or in part, many of the serious problems that forms designers face.
Reduce user errors
People who use tax forms often complain that the forms are too complicated or confusing. Nonetheless, Web developers dream of creating forms with error rates as low as what the IRS sees on tax forms.
A number of components can contribute to user error. The IRS deals both with intentional and unintentional user errors. The distinction between the two, while insignificant in terms of what a particular wage earner might pay in taxes, is significant in terms of how to correct the errors.
- Unintentional errors presume that a user somehow misunderstood the form or doesn't have accurate data available.
- Intentional errors require a user to consciously decide to introduce false data or a potentially unsupported interpretation into a form.
The same error may be intentional or unintentional, depending on the user; for instance, a user with retrograde amnesia who fills in an erroneous home address is probably merely mistaken, not malicious.
Unintentional user errors
Unintentional user errors pose an interesting challenge. The user is, by definition, not trying to introduce such errors -- you can't just ask the user not to make any mistakes. These errors come because the user misunderstands the form.
The first-line solution to unintentional errors is clear documentation and plenty of it. I think the IRS has focused on the quantity side of this equation, producing a volume of documentation that has to be seen to be believed (and can be at no cost). Web developers can learn from this; if a form on a Web page comes with a similar wealth of documentation, the chance of users filling the form out correctly is small.
For smaller organizations, your goal is to weigh the costs of writing additional documentation against the costs of supporting users who failed to understand the form. Ideally, each field of the form has explanatory text -- just enough so the user understands how to fill in the field. Precise legal terms, especially when their meanings are not the same as common English usage, are unlikely to increase accuracy.
Intentional user errors
Although you might be surprised by this, not all people who fill out tax forms do so with perfectly honest intent. Web companies face the same problem. For instance, companies who make people submit an e-mail address on a form, even if the company claims it won't spam you, might face a high rate of questionable or fabricated e-mail addresses.
The IRS's primary solution to the problem of intentional errors is to declare them a felony -- wouldn't businesses have an easier time of it if they could do that! They can impose stiff fines and penalties for intentional errors and charge interest on any money they are owed. Most privately owned Web sites do not have the resources to enforce such a policy, but it seems reasonable to imagine that government-run Web sites might make use of this option. You can see that some options available to government agencies for addressing intentional user errors are not available to most businesses.
Worksheets
I find the use of worksheets on forms of particular interest. Worksheets supposedly make it easier to follow the logic of a form. But do they make it easier when a page or so of additional fields on
a worksheet can easily produce a single field in another document?
Worksheets are best used when:
- The main form has a fairly consistent flow to it.
- Interrupting that flow to do the calculations needed to produce an exact number for a specific field is intrusive.
Of course, it's rare when they're actually used this way.
You might apply the worksheet concept to many aspects of Web application development and form design. For instance, many forms ask a user separately for a first and last name. Suppose this were instead a worksheet which displays a single value on the screen when filled out. The user then selects the text, copies it to the clipboard, hits the back button twice, and fills it in.
Make sure you don't allow the user to fill in the value without running the worksheet first. Also, you might discover that users working on a particularly difficult worksheet forget what they were doing on the original form Try to control this by setting a very short session timeout on the front page, allowing them to restart it if they've been away for too long.
Some users might not appreciate worksheets, considering them distracting or intrusive. A solution to this problem might be to make each worksheet a Flash game so users enjoy the process and come to see each worksheet as an opportunity to escape the drudgery of online paperwork.
Although the IRS takes minimal advantage of this notion, recursion is a good match for worksheets. Worksheets allow a task to be broken down into simple steps, so it might make sense to have a worksheet whose fields were each, in turn, calculated by another worksheet.
Incentives
When people don't fill out forms, they often use the excuse that it's too much work. Consider how to encourage them with negative or positive incentives. The IRS appears to have entirely solved this problem, too. Once again, the key comes from the close relationship with the criminal justice system that the IRS enjoys. Willful failure to file your taxes can result in criminal charges. However, the IRS also has an elaborate and complicated set of financial penalties available for people who fail to file their taxes or pay them in a timely manner.
On the other hand, the IRS offers rewards too. As many people overpay taxes during the year, customers who are unsure about their taxes often fill them out early in the hopes of "winning" a refund of their overpayment. This helps keep users interested.
Companies can offer similar techniques. For instance, a Web store I recently frequented had URLs ending in ?price=X.YY for every object in the store. This provided a possible incentive to fill out the form very carefully, although not accurately. (Luckily for them, U.S. fraud laws probably provide them with a criminal penalty for false filing!)
The bottom line
The IRS provides examples of form design techniques which are familiar to a huge audience. Its forms are used year after year by a very large number of people. Some are so enamored of these forms as to fill them out on the behalf of other people! It has proposed solutions to common form design problems which range from radical innovation to mere gradual improvement and accretion, but one thing stays constant: A majority of American citizens eagerly track the development of the forms the IRS maintains.
Learning lessons from other organizations offers Web designers a unique opportunity to pursue a user experience unlike any most people have ever considered and reap the rewards of such a policy almost immediately. What are you waiting for?
This week's action item: Fill out some IRS forms. Compare that user experience to using traditional Web-based forms. How would you rate them?
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