This is actually very timely as our team has just completed working on a major web form (for internal use so no link unfortunately). It was a pretty interesting project and pretty much consisted of translating the paper version to an online form. In addition to adding in all the calculations of specific fields, tying certain fields as requirements to other, and figuring out the actual work pattern of the user filling these things out on paper so we could make it somewhat similar to how they could fill it out online (muti-stage submissions; save and complete laters....) mmmmm... fun. Well I think we did a pretty darn good job, and we'll find out as soon as the form is live for use. (Jan 2).

How many times have you been handed a paper version of a form and been told "put this on the web" or "make this a web form" and "it has to look exactly like this"? Yeeesh! For me - it's easily more times than I can count. Sometimes, you're lucky and the paper form will translate well to web use. Other times - not so lucky, and you have to convince your client why the paper form logic doesn't translate for web use. Thankfully, we got lucky in that our form, while formidable, did lend itself pretty well initially to being turned into an online form; the tricky part came later when we had a better understanding of how the users would actually be filling out the forms and had to rejig some of the programming. Apparently save and complete later was a pretty high level requirement. (And yes, we did have a list of requirements before beginning the construction process.) In terms of usability, we came across a few issues that our clients were able to see and compromise on so we lucked out again.

And how timely that I had some articles on online forms appear on my newsreader today:

A List Apart, has published a new article on Sensible Forms which you should read (and read again). It's packed full of good tips for creating usable, sensible web based forms. Also be sure to read the comments for internationalization tips and traps.

Also, here is an alternative to the multi-selection drop-down list element - that form element which confuses the hell out of most users, and often requires instructions on how to use it.

And not an article but while you're at it, go ahead and check out The Form Assembly website. Their tag line is "we take the pain out of creating web forms." Sounds good!

I find December is a tough month to set aside some time to blog. At least this December anyway. The days have been utterly consumed with work while the nights consumed with planning for the "big event" on the 25th. Weekends are swallowed up in mall mania as we journey forth to join the hoards of Christmas shopper. It's been a whirlwind, frenzied month but I see the light ahead. I think we're finally pretty much ready which gives me a moment or two for some noteables:

1. FACE (Faruk's Animated CSS Enhancements) by Faruk Ates - very nifty stuff. Just remember they're enhancements and as such not to be overdone!

2. The end of IE (Mac) - well, that ought to please the OS9 and under crowd. (I haven't used IE since upgrading to OSX but it was definitely the browser of choice for OS 9).

3. A really good article at A List Apart on Thinking Outside the Grid (Molly E. Holzschlag). The basic premise in a sentence: Don't feel constrained to using grid page layouts. Hmmm... but to do otherwise you really have to change the way you think. Not always a bad thing.

4. Ok, this is interesting: PHP+CSS Dynamic Text Replacement for styling your headline text.

5. Here's a neat site if you're trying to send large files by email but can't due to filesize constraints. Check out Drop Send.

6. The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web from Clagnut.

7. An Advent Calendar (web style) - 24 Ways to impress your friends - by Drew McLellan