I'm very late coming to the party, my apologies...
That said, we recently did similar prototype testing on several search forms with a mixture of required and optional fields. On the team we were split on the best approach, so we tried to distinct methods: one with optional spelled out, the other with those fields having a different visual indicator. Though the sample size was limited, the "Optional" won hands-down. Remarkably, some participants even commented on how much they liked that it said "optional right there".
I know our UI team was not thrilled, but it was extremely advantageous to spell it out rather than use an icon or other visual indicators.
Hope this helps,
Erin
erin walsh | product developer | For Rent Media Solutions™ 150 granby street, 16th floor | norfolk, va 23510
p:757.351.8444 | f:757.961.4827
erin.walsh at ForRent.com| www.FRMediaSolutions.com
You Have Multiple Marketing Needs... We Have Multiple Solutions! On Jul 14, 2008, at 8:47 AM, Marty DeAngelo wrote:
Caroline,
We weren't thinking about using the asterisk to indicate the optional fields - we were considering either having the big "(Optional)" after the legend or maybe an alternate icon (I was leaning against that because who knows what an 'field optional' icon looks like?).
My concern is that if 9 out of 10 items are required, then those 9 red asterisks create more noise in the form. I would rather try to call out the ONE field which isn't required but necessary to include, such as Apt # or Suite # .
Make sense?
Original Message From: Caroline Jarrett [mailto:caroline.jarrett at effortmark.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, July 12, 2008 1:15 PM To: Marty DeAngelo; discuss at ixda.org Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Marking Required vs. Optional form fields After reading Luke Wroblewski's book, "Web Form Design: Filling In the Blanks", I have to agree with his sentiment about indicating the MINORITY of the form elements:
This is one of very few (and possibly, the only) point where I disagree with Luke. And perhaps, I don't even completely disagree.
My experience has been that very few users pay any attention to the required field markers. Those who do tend to be highly internet-savvy, and they also tend to look first of all to see where the asterisks are.
best, Caroline Jarrett
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