Mobile forms tend to have significantly more constraints than their desktop cousins: screens are smaller; connections are slower; text entry is trickier; the list goes on. So, limiting the number of forms in your mobile applications and websites is generally a good idea. When you do want input from users on mobile devices, radio buttons, checkboxes, select menus and lists tend to work much better than open text fields.

But constraints breed innovation, and mobile forms are no different. The limitations of mobile devices have forced developers and designers to find new ways to allow users to input data faster and more easily. Thanks to the modern solutions covered in this article, the mobile space may not be a place to avoid forms much longer. Instead, it may become the place to encourage them.

[Offtopic: By the way, did you know that Smashing Magazine has a mobile version? Try it out if you have an iPhone, Blackberry or another capable device.]

Field Zoom

In many mobile Web browsers, when a user selects a form’s input field, the “field zoom” feature expands it to fill the screen’s viewable area. This makes an otherwise tiny field large enough for people to actually see the data they are entering. Given that many form errors are caused by people not seeing their inputs well enough to correct misspellings, the usability of this feature is clear.

The Safari browser on Apple’s iPhone makes use of field zoom together with a “form assistant.” The form assistant displays “Previous,” “Next,” “AutoFill” and “Done” buttons below the magnified input field, giving people an easy way to move through and complete a form. No need to worry if an input field is off screen: the user just hits “Next” and won’t miss it!

However, not everyone will know about the form assistant or know how to hide the keyboard. So, make sure the controls on the Web page still allow them to complete the form. Excessive spacing around the “Submit” button can tuck it behind the keyboard.

Field zoom is another great reason to top-align input field labels in forms. As you can see on Google’s registration form (screenshot below), left-aligned labels disappear when input fields are expanded to fill the screen. With no visible label, the user can easily forget what question they have to answer. Long input fields also suffer a bit with field zoom.

Mobile browsers that don’t have field zoom also run into issues with left- and right-aligned input field labels. Anyone using such a form on Google’s Android OS (below) faces the problem of disappearing labels. The screen simply does not have enough room for both the input field and its corresponding label. Top-aligned labels avoid this issue.

Input Formats

Some mobile Web browsers recognize specific input types (part of the developing HTML5 standard) and adjust their input modes accordingly. For example, specifying an input of the type url brings up a virtual alphanumeric keyboard with “.”, “/”, and “.com” keys. Specifying an input of the type email brings up a virtual alphanumeric keyboard with “.” and “@” keys. Specifying an input of the type number brings up a virtual numeric keyboard.

These input-specific keyboards make entering the particular type of data required by each input field much easier. Even browsers without virtual keyboards benefit from the use of number, because users would not have to switch to number mode to enter numeric data.

Password-Masking

Most password input fields in forms instantly obscure all characters that a user enters to keep sensitive information hidden from prying eyes. Automatic masking of passwords may provide the appearance of security, but it can also create usability issues when people are left staring at a row of bullets that they hope (but can’t verify) is their password.

Many mobile devices address this issue by displaying the most recent character the user has entered, and then obscuring that character as a bullet only after a brief delay. This technique has made its way onto the desktop, as illustrated in this password-masking solution from ZURB.

Pop-Up Menu Controls

Drop-down select menus are one of the hardest input types to use. First, you have to click on the menu to open it. Then, you have to maneuver through a potentially long list of small targets. Once you find the value you want, you need position your cursor on the right target and select it. To top it off, many implementations of drop-down menus on the Web require you to keep your cursor on the menu while navigating the list, or else the menu closes!

Even dexterous users often miss them and need to start over. Couple this interactive challenge with the small screens of mobile devices and the need for a different solution for select menus becomes quite obvious.

For drop-down select menus on Web forms, Apple’s iPhone presents users with a pop-up menu control. This control displays the options in the menu in a contained list that can be scrolled at various speeds though drag, nudge and flick gestures. The large touch targets also make it easy to select the right value once you’ve found it.

Similarly, Google’s Android provides a larger touch target for select menu options. When the user taps a drop-down select menu on an Android device, a scrollable list of menu options appears in a dialog window over the Web page.

Compound Menu Controls

Pop-up menu controls can be applied to compound inputs as well. So, instead of requiring three separate input fields for the month, day and year of a requested date, one date field can bring up a set of pop-up menus that allow people to scroll through three lists at once to find the right date. This approach can be applied to other kinds of compound inputs as well, such as height in feet and inches.

Google’s Android has a compound input field solution, though it makes use of visible interface elements to move through a list instead of relying on gesture-based scrolling alone.

Native Input Controls

In addition to having compound menu controls, most mobile operating systems have several other custom input controls available to application developers. Sliders, split buttons, rating widgets and scrubbers are just a few of the components worth considering in place of standard form controls to make inputting easier for users.

Orientation

Because people like to hold mobile devices both horizontally and vertically in their hands, mobile forms should adjust accordingly to take advantage of the changing screen space. The compose email form on Google’s Android does just that.

When held vertically, the screen shows three input fields with several action buttons. In the horizontal position, the email body input takes over the screen, and one action button is shown on the right. This layout maximizes the screen space available for the message content.

Voice Input

Google’s Nexus One phone allows people to use voice input for any text field in an application. Users can swipe the virtual keyboard to switch the phone to audio input mode, or they can use the microphone button. The video below demonstrates both of these options in action. With effective voice input, typing any characters into the mobile device becomes a thing of the past.

What’s Next?

Mobile is growing exceptionally fast, and as more designers and developers focus on the space, we’ll hopefully see even further innovation in mobile forms. After all, anything that makes inputting (both on mobile and desktop devices) faster and easier will do a lot of good for both companies and their customers.

About the Author

Luke Wroblewski is an internationally recognized digital product design leader and the author of two popular Web design books. You can follow Luke on Twitter @lukewdesign or by using RSS.

Smashing Magazine readers can get a special 20% off discount on Luke’s latest book: Web Form Design Filling in the Blanks. Just use discount code MIX to order.

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© Luke Wroblewski for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | 19 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
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Forms On Mobile Devices: Modern Solutions originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on March 12, 2010.

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Re-launched yesterday, Springpad is a new Web service that allows you to save documents, images, photographs, notes, and even snippets of the Web for future reference in an account that you can access from any Internet-connected computer. If the idea sounds familiar, it should; Springpad isn’t the first company to do this, but the developers behind the scenes have recently completely redesigned the service to make it easier to use and to add features, and they’ve rolled out an iPhone app that lets you take your documents and other clippings on the go.

Whether a friend mentioned a restaurant that you’re interested in trying, you saw a blog post you want to share with your friends later, or you took a picture on your mobile phone you want to share with others, Springpad lets you save them all in your personal notebook. The service also organizes them and pulls in relevant data from around the Web to help you keep those items organized.
 

Springpad allows you to save snippets of everything you encounter that you want to remember or store, and then come back to it all later from your iPhone, or from any Web-connected computer. This way you have a place for everything from products you see in the store but want to research when you get home to a nearby bar that your coworkers are thinking about heading for happy hour after work. You can add businesses, restaurants, and other locations to your Springpad account, and Springpad will go out and collect information like Yelp reviews and maps to fill out the item description.

Springpad also works for snippets of the Web, like news articles and blog posts, downloaded images, even content on a Web page like recipes, books, or product listings. When you save something from the Web to your Springpad account, the service tries to link back as much information as possible, including images from the original source, a link to the item on the Web, and product information if it’s an item in an online store. You can also create multiple lists for different types of clippings, so you can create a specific list for all of the local restaurants you want to try, and another for articles you find interesting.

Each item you add to your list can be public or private, and you can quickly toggle the privacy of any particular item from your Springpad account. There are some social networking services to Springpad as well; you can follow other people who are using the account and see the lists and items they’ve made public, and you can easily share lists and individual items on Twitter, Facebook, or to your friends via e-mail.

Another stand-out feature of Springpad is its iPhone app. The app, available in the iTunes App Store, allows you to access your clippings and saved items anywhere from your iPhone. If you see products on store shelves while you're out and about, the app even allows you to scan the barcode of the item to collect product information to go along with its entry in your collection.  The app is free, and even though it's available only for the iPhone, developers are promising a version for Android phones and possibly BlackBerry devices in the near future.

Springpad is obviously taking on Evernote with its newly redesigned service; Evernote has been long regarded as a must-have app if you need to make notes on the go, save lots of things for future reference, or even access those items on the go. The difference is the level to which Springpad goes out to the rest of the Web and pulls in relevant information, and then automatically organizes items for you so you don't have to spend time getting organized just to be organized. Springpad rolls in some social networking and the ability to share your items at home or on the go, and does it all for free. 

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Springpad Allows You to Save Anything Anywhere originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on March 11, 2010.

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Contemplating a big life change? Maybe you’re deciding whether to look for a new job, or you’re weighing something simpler like where to go for dinner. A list of pros and cons can help you make the decision based on the evidence that’s in front of you and not on impulse alone.

ProConLists.com is a Web service that can help you quickly and easily get in front of you the pros and cons of any decision, big or small, and then share your list with the world to get everyone’s opinion on the decision.

ProConLists.com seems to be used largely for popularity-contest questions, like whether or not the Bloom Box fuel cell is worthwhile, whether you should play Guild Wars or World of Warcraft, and whether you should consider buying an Apple iPad. To use the service, sign up for an account (completely free). You can then start creating topics and listing the pros and cons for the decision below.

If the service just stopped with a list of pros and cons it wouldn’t be quite as interesting, but ProConList.com takes rational and emotional weight into account for each pro and con. When you type in an item, you can assign it a rational weight (as in, this is something that is logically important) and an emotional weight (as in, this is something that will make me happy or unhappy.) You can also assign a category to it so others can easily find your list and weigh in on it.

Once you’ve entered all of your pros and cons and you’ve assigned them weights, click the “calculate results” button at the bottom of the page to determine the score based on the number of pros and cons and their assigned weights. The service will give you the results, and tell you what your decision should be based on the information you’ve provided. The service also gives you your emotional and rational results based entirely on the weights of the items and not the number of items you’ve provided.

After your list is created, you can share it with the rest of the ProConList.com community and they can leave comments on the list as a whole, or vote up or down on your individual pros and cons, or the weight you’ve assigned to them. If you trust the community’s opinion, you can even go back and add some of the pros and cons they suggest to your list.

ProConLists.com isn’t going to make any judgments for you, but it’s definitely a great tool to help you clearly identify the things that go through your mind when you’re making a decision. It may be overkill for deciding whether you should go out or eat in for dinner, but it may help you articulate the reasons in your head for or against moving across the country or taking a new job, for example.

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ProConLists.com Helps You Weigh Your Options originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on March 11, 2010.

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One of the toughest aspects of staying productive is overcoming the ups and downs of motivation. Spending 10 minutes getting organized in the morning, then 15 minutes again in the evening, can help even out your daily go-get-’em energy. More »

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Keep Your Daily Momentum Going With a 10/15 Split [Work] originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on March 10, 2010.

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A luxurious soak in the bathtub is that much better when you can sink all the way up to your chin. Use Deep Water Bath to override the overflow valve and get extra inches of water in the tub. More »

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Deep Water Bath Fills Your Tub to the Brim [Stuff We Like] originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on March 10, 2010.

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Filed under: Internet, web 2.0, Browsers

Microsoft Labs has an insanely-cool tech demo product called Pivot. In a nutshell, it’s a completely new browsing paradigm which lets you “swim” in the ocean of data rather than drown in it. You can zoom in and out on complex sets of data, and slice and dice them in all sorts of crazy ways.

I saw a TED talk about it (you can watch it too, after the jump) and on the one hand it seemed very cool, but the guy presenting it was also the developer and was very familiar with it. This made me wonder what it’s like to use it for the first time — it’s such a paradigm shift, that I just had to see what’s the learning curve and how it actually works in real life.

So I downloaded and installed it, and made a short screencast documenting my initial impression. It’s very different than the TED Talk because I’m obviously a first-time user, which is the whole point really. My video is after the jump.

My own video:

The original TED Talk showing an overview of Pivot:

DLS Screencast: first time with Microsoft Pivot originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft – Download Squad – Tech demo – Microsoft Pivot – Business

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DLS Screencast: first time with Microsoft Pivot originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on March 10, 2010.

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Filed under: Developer, Web services

DummyImage.com is a great time saver for web developers laying out a quick page. It receives arguments in the URL, and returns an image of the exact size, colors, and file format specified. The image at the top of this post is not a screenshot; I merely entered the following line into my editor:

As you can see, it’s completely human-readable. I have a serious thing for web services with human-readable URLs. I guess they make me feel like I’m on top of things, like I know what I’m doing. Anyways, self-analysis aside, there’s really not much else to say about this service. It is very useful, and free, and open-source. Oh, and you can also overlay text on your images, not just the dimensions:

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DummyImage.com is the Lorem Ipsum of web images originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lorem Ipsum – Download Squad – Open source – Uniform Resource Locator – Graphic design

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DummyImage.com is the Lorem Ipsum of web images originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on March 10, 2010.

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How To Harden PHP5 With Suhosin On CentOS 5.4

This tutorial shows how to harden PHP5 with Suhosin on a CentOS 5.4 server. From the Suhosin project page: “Suhosin
is an advanced protection system for PHP installations that was
designed to protect servers and users from known and unknown flaws in
PHP applications and the PHP core. Suhosin comes in two independent
parts, that can be used separately or in combination. The first part is
a small patch against the PHP core, that implements a few low-level
protections against bufferoverflows or format string vulnerabilities
and the second part is a powerful PHP extension that implements all the
other protections.”

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How To Harden PHP5 With Suhosin On CentOS 5.4 originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on March 10, 2010.

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A Trojan horse (Windows) was detected in the software accompanying a USB Energizer DUO charger of batteries. It opens a port on the affected PC that makes it possible to be able to reach it easily from outside.
Even though it is impossible not to throw the stone at the company that did not make any elementary checks before offering its software, there are others, and Apple springs to mind, who already know about this kind of mishap. In 2006 a small series of iPod had been put on the market with a PC Virus pre-installed on it…

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A Trojan horse in a battery charger originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on March 10, 2010.

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Panic is a software company that makes useful tools like my personal favorite, Transmit for the Mac. They’ve also made a beautiful project status display that keeps their team on top of what they’re working on and keeps everyone motivated.

The board is actually an internal web page that auto-updates support email queue numbers, how far along each company project is, day over day revenue comparisons, the company calendar, and Twitter messages. Here’s the effect it’s had on the team:

Les, one of our support guys, said it best after a week: “That board is like magic.” Our support turnaround time is faster than it’s ever been. Just the simple act of “publicizing” those numbers – not in a cruel way, but a “where are we at as a group?” way – has kept the support process on-task and, I think, made it a bit more like a video game. (It helps that when all the boxes are at “zero”, a virtual bottle of champagne appears on-screen, and a physical one is likely removed from the fridge.)

Brilliant! I am dying for one of these for my own personal use. Panic, will you add that to your project list? For the nitty gritty on how this board was built and what kind of display it’s on, check out the full post at the Panic blog.

Smarterware is Lifehacker editor emeritus Gina Trapani’s new home away from ‘hacker. To get all of the latest from Smarterware, be sure to subscribe to the Smarterware RSS feed. For more, check out Gina’s weekly Smarterware feature here on Lifehacker.

Republished from smarterware.org

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Staying Motivated at Work with a Status Board [Workflow] originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on March 10, 2010.

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