Do No Harm: Making Better Forms for People

Rebecca Blakiston and Ann Shivers-McNair co-present at the edUi conference in Virginia.

In higher education, forms are everywhere. Students use them to register for classes, staff use them to get technical help, and faculty use them to request classroom spaces and technology. But too often, we don’t give these forms the care and nurturing they deserve. In this session, attendees will learn how to empathize with users in order to design and write forms that are better for the people who have to use them. Attendees will learn how to ensure their forms are inclusive, approachable, and human-centered. We will cover a range of considerations from format, plain language, and structure to details like confirmation messages, button placement, and field labels. By the end of this session, attendees will be able to create forms that have users saying, “that’s nice!” and not, “this sucks!”

What You’ll Learn

• How to write useful field labels, error messages, and confirmation messages
• How to simplify form content, including only what is absolutely necessary