Clicks & Notes

04 February 2005

Implementing Online Forms in Corporate Intranets

Step Two Designs - Step-by-step: implementing online forms

Online forms should be a key component of all corporate intranets, as they deliver clear productivity benefits and cost savings. Few organisations, however, have taken the next steps beyond simply publishing forms in PDF format.

  • instead of merely serving as a static repository, an intranet can be used to enable business processes within an organization
  • online forms can speed up both the initial information capture and back-office processing; however, it is more common for people to print out PDFs to be completed and processed by hand
  • companies can use an incremental approach to implementing online forms:
    1. use simple HTML forms to capture information and generate an email
    2. pre-populate some form fields, ideally using information based on a user’s intranent login ID
    3. set up a simple workflow – still email based – with a limited number of steps ; additional code can be added to the initial capture form to provide some “form logic”
    4. implement full workflow and integration, which could be done by:
      • additional custom development of the existing forms
      • using workflow functionality of a CMS or EDM system
      • integration with an “enterprise workflow solution”
  • using the workflow functionality of a CMS is recommended as an effective way of short-cutting the steps noted above
  • addtional suggestions:
    • ensure ’single sign-on’ across all intranet systems
    • forms should be linked with the supporting information/policies
    • forms should appear in search results near the top of the list
⇒ Filed under:  by jen @ 3:41 am

Approaches to Laying Out Form Elements on a Web Page

LukeW - Web Application Form Design

  • different schemas can be applied to the layout of form elements on a web page; these schemas lend themselves to supporting different user behaviours/scenarios:
    • vertical alignment of labels and input fields works best in situations where forms should be completed quickly and users are familiar with the content/data to be input into the form
    • horizontal alignment with left-justified input field labels allows users to scan a form quickly to see what information is required; however, this can create gaps between labels and their corresponding form fields, which slows the user down while they ensure that the right information goes in the right field
    • horizontal alignment with right-justified input field labels makes it easy for users to match the form label with the correct form field, but scannability of the labels suffers
  • visual elements such as background colours or rules can be used to group related content in a form, but should be used sparingly
  • elements that represent a primary action associated with a form, such as “Save” or “Submit” button, should have more visual weight that other form elements
  • if a form also has multiple or secondary actions associated with it, these elements should differentiated as well

(via GUUUI)

⇒ Filed under:  by jen @ 3:04 am

Using Microsoft Excel for Form Prototyping

ID Connections - Simplifying Forms In A Not So Simple World

  • describes the approach taken in translating a very complicated paper-based form into something that was relatively simple to complete online:
    “We started with a complex interface that required very simple technology (a pencil or a keyboard) to fill out and turned it into a very simple interface with a much more complex back end supporting it.”
  • prototyping was done using Microsoft Excel; advantages to doing this were:

    starting in Excel allowed us to make a workable prototype using tools we could handle ourselves. If we hired a programmer to make a web application, we still would have had to go through the same design process to develop the pieces of the product…

    By focusing on a doable prototype, we were able to get tangible results quickly.

⇒ Filed under:  by jen @ 3:03 am

Identity Theft, Online Scams, and Password Failure

Computerworld - FTC: Identity theft, online scams rose in ‘04

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said it received 635,000 consumer complaints in 2004, as criminals sold nonexistent products through online auction sites or went shopping with stolen credit cards. Identity theft – the practice of running up bills or committing crimes in someone else’s name – topped the list with 247,000 complaints, up 15% from 2003.

Technology Review - The Password Is Fayleyure

Today’s password authentication schemes are little more than security placebos. They perversely inspire abuse, misuse, and criminal mischief by deliberately making users the weakest link in the security chain. Greater teleprocessing power has made stealing or cracking password sequences ever faster, better, and cheaper.

(via Tomalak’s Realm)

Update: Here are some tips for making up passwords that are relatively easy to remember, but difficult to guess…

Cutting Through - Secure passwords with nursery rhymes

Take a phrase or saying, or perhaps a line from a song that you can remember readily, then type the first letter of each word as you say it to yourself… You can make it even more secure by throwing in a few number / character substitutions - zeros for the letter ‘o’, for example.

Eric’s Archived Thoughts - Password Production

The general idea is to pick a two-word combination you can easily remember (and) interleave the words… In cases where your two words have different lengths, you can always tack on numbers.

(via Cutting Through)

⇒ Filed under:  by jen @ 1:58 am

© Jennifer Vetterli, 2005