Clearleft reposted this
😱 Forms are complicated. As our team works to reach people who need essential services like housing and public benefits, we rely heavily on forms. Such a reliance on our forms to be accessible and inclusive increases the risk of things going sideways... → “What does that even mean?” Some information we are asking for is either sensitive or can easily be misunderstood. Users need clarity and guidance when being asked for specific pieces of information. → “I think I messed that up.” As we all know, things go wrong all the time. We need to be able to help users recover from errors when mistakes happen. → “Did I miss something?” People with disabilities often get left behind when designing forms. How can can we ensure that our forms are accessible to folks using assistive technology? Luckily there are a bunch of stellar resources out there for folks looking to create better forms: 📋 Co-op Experience Library has one of the clearest walkthroughs of accessible form principles and elements that I've found and I highly recommend it for folks who want a clear and concise overview of best practices. https://lnkd.in/gVgYxZcP 🚨 GOV.UK Design System has amazingly clear documentation on components and patterns for various form elements and use cases. Among all the incredible material they provide is one of the best write ups on creating effective error messages organized by input type! https://lnkd.in/g3NTJ6zM 🤔 Clearleft does a excellent job at saying the quiet part out loud, “Do we even need to ask this question?” After learning about the ‘question protocol’, hopefully your team will have a greater understanding of the costs of asking for information you may not need. https://lnkd.in/gF3BNFqE As a result of our ongoing research, our team at Exygy has collected a couple of best practices. We hope some of this is helpful for your team. 💎 Start with a question protocol and audit your forms to make sure that you are only asking for information you need and doing so in the most ethical and equitable ways possible. 💎 Build forms to be as streamlined and intuitive as possible, asking one thing at a time, allowing folks to save their progress and helping users to recover from errors as gracefully as possible. 💎 Ensure that the team does the hard work to keep things accessible by testing with assistive technology including people with disabilities when possible instead of relying solely on automated testing. #forms #accessibility #ux #ui #design #designsystems