IxDA Discussion: Forms design / labels inside the fields

Maciej Bieganski

Today 3:13am

Hi,

In the company I'm working with a discussion has just been started;

TOPIC: Whether placing a labels inside the fields is a good idea or not. This pattern is spreading recently (i.e. facebook) a lot.

Personally, I'm not supporting this idea for many reasons (accessibility, patterns in an eye fixation on form elements etc).

Though, I'd like to avoid religious debate on this issue and follow up with some objective studies and/or research.

Have you analyzed this issue before or seen some interesting findings? User studies?

Nathanael Boehm

Today 3:32am

Hi Maciej,

We had this discussion over at UX Exchange a few months back ( http://uxexchange.com/questions /309 /form -field -inside -labels -usability -and -accessibility ) and in response I put together a prototype interaction pattern for form labels inside fields that displayed the label underneath the form field when the cursor was in the field and reinstated it if the user cleared the field or left it blank. Also provided for alternate styling for displaying labels vs user data inside the field. Accessible too, though being a prototype could use some work:

http://sandpit.purecaffeine.com/text_in_form_field.html

Cheers,

Nathanael Boehm

Etienne

Today 3:35am

Do you know LukeW studies ? Well, you should take a look at these.

William Hudson

Today 4:09am

Maciej -

We just had a long discussion on virtually (but not quite) the same topic here on IxDA. Look for '"help text" in input fields - bad?'

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hudson at syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985). Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon OX14 2DS.

Attend our courses on Ajax design & usability, card sorting and web usability:
CHI 2010 Conference (Atlanta, Georgia) http://www.chi2010.org UPA 2010 Conference (Munich, Germany) http://bit.ly/8x9NU

Original Message
From: discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Maciej Bieganski
Sent: 09 February 2010 03:13
To: discuss at ixda.org
Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Forms design / labels inside the fields

Hi,

In the company I'm working with a discussion has just been started;

TOPIC: Whether placing a labels inside the fields is a good idea or not. This pattern is spreading recently (i.e. facebook) a lot.

Personally, I'm not supporting this idea for many reasons (accessibility, patterns in an eye fixation on form elements etc).

Though, I'd like to avoid religious debate on this issue and follow up with some objective studies and/or research.

Have you analyzed this issue before or seen some interesting findings? User studies?

Chris Korhonen

Today 5:49am

I'm not aware of any specific research on the issue - I know LukeW has covered it briefly on his blog:

http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?687

I'd also be interested if someone has done any research on the topic.

Chris

On Feb 9, 2010, at 3:13 AM, Maciej Bieganski wrote:

Hi, In the company I'm working with a discussion has just been started; TOPIC: Whether placing a labels inside the fields is a good idea or not. This pattern is spreading recently (i.e. facebook) a lot. Personally, I'm not supporting this idea for many reasons (accessibility, patterns in an eye fixation on form elements etc). Though, I'd like to avoid religious debate on this issue and follow up with some objective studies and/or research. Have you analyzed this issue before or seen some interesting findings? User studies? Reply to this thread [trim]

Jason Robb