Sometimes we get so used to doing things one way that we forget a little and important thing: to improve. We get so involved with all this CTA stuff that we forget other important things, like the contact form that comes after the pretty button.

Our task today is to improve our form, to get better conversion rates, and maybe learn something from it.

We will be talking about conversion, code, and design, in an easy and practical way.

So, let’s stop talking and rock some forms.

1. Test and track everything

Before changing anything, you need to learn how to do split tests so you can measure your improvement. Since there is no magic formula, some techniques that work for other people just don’t work for you and vice-versa. It’s kind of a trial and error process.

We have a lot of tools for this tracking job, including tracking goals and funnels with Google analytics or recording users interactions with Clicktale.

2. Increase conversion by 25%~40% with “Mad Libs”

According to Wikipedia:

Mad Libs consist of a book that has a short story on each page with many key words replaced with blanks.[...] One player asks the other players, in turn, to contribute some word for the specified type for each blank, but without revealing the context for that word. Finally, the completed story is read aloud.

It sounds funny, isn’t it? Well, it is also really good for business. LukeW wrote an article about how 2 guys (each one in his own site) have increased dramatically the conversion rates, with this technique.

We have a lot of examples that when you turn your software more friendly, you get much better results. So when you do not have a simple form, but a dialogue the user seems more open to fill it.

3. Captchas are bad guys

Unless you are a nice guy and want to help in the book digitizing business, I recommend you to remove your captchas.

I say this because we have some alternatives that are almost as efficient as captchas are, but without the downside of reducing our conversion rates.

We have two good examples, one guy who increased his conversion by 33% and other that lost 3.2% of his conversion while captcha was active, because some people couldn’t complete the process.

Both replaced captcha with honey pot fields and just kept spam at a low level.

4. Don’t put optional fields

This one is really simple. If this information will be used, you need an obligatory field. If it isn’t you don’t need this field.

If you really want to get more information about your users, I recommend you to ask for it after they have finished their current activity (buying, registering…) so you don’t waste their time with not-so-important things and keep your forms as short as possible (you know, long forms are bad, bad guys).

5. Use steps in checkout pages (avoid one page checkout)

Actually I’ve done this one wrong many times. When users see long forms they just don’t want to spend their time filling it out. But the funny part is that if you break a long form in 3 little forms, they are much more open to complete the process.

Proimpact 7 gives us 5 reasons why not to use one page checkout. Basically, it is because they can reduce your conversion rate by 60%.

6. Remove that reset button

All reset buttons should have the label “you’ve been rick rolled”. Really, 99,999% of the cases you just don’t need them, and it can make the user lose all his data. Jakob Nielsen is pretty extremist about it, he says “Reset: Don’t use“.

7. Don’t mask passwords

This is a pretty controversial thing. Sometimes it is better to mask sometimes not.

What you have to keep in mind is that sometimes it’s good to give the users the options to “unmask” the password field.

Jakob Nielsen again has a pretty extremist opinion that you must stop password masking. I don’t think it really works  this way, but you can try this alternative and measure your results. :D

8. Validate fields

Sure, you must be clear about how users must fill some form fields, but it is impossible to prevent all errors. So it is good to have some client-side form validation, like Vanadium, so users can see what is wrong while they are still typing.

9. Label above the field is better

Above is an eye tracking study that shows how users find it much easier to relate the labels to the fields while they are above them.

It is a really good study of UXMatters about label placement in forms. The only downside of labels above fields is that they need more space so the form can look bigger while it has the same number of inputs than others.

Another good alternative is sliding labels, but I think that has potential to save space and be easy to understand.

10. Auto complete is your friend

Don’t know why aren’t you using it yet.

Don’t be afraid to use some custom elements

Sometimes we need calendars, multiple selects, sliders and others elements that aren’t available in HTML or they are really bad by default.

When you have this, don’t be afraid to use jQuery enhancements to your form (non-obtrusive way, of course). We have a lot of plugins and resources to help us in this task.

One really good example is Uniform, that creates sexy forms with jQuery. It’s really worth 5 minutes of your attention.

Are you hungry yet?

I’m sure you have read something about it too. Why don’t you join this conversation and put you thoughts in comments?

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TN3 Gallery is a professional and very flexible jQuery image gallery plugin for displaying and rotating a collection of images in various ways.

It works cross-browser (including mobile), has multiple transition effects, can show captions and present the thumbnails horizontally or vertically.

The plugin can automatically generate these thumbnails with or without resizing them on the server-side (with the help of a PHP file) and enable users to browse the gallery by clicking to these thumbnails.

Thumbnails are not the only way to view the images, there are also prev-next buttons, mouse-wheel + keyboard support, auto-slideshow and, optionally, bullet-type-of-navigation can be used rather than thumbnails.

A lovely feature is the ability to present multiple albums with each album having its own thumbnail and caption to help users better understand "what is inside".

TN3 Gallery can use XML as the data source which is great for integrating the gallery with 3rd party software like CMS applications.

For maximum customization, the API comes to the aid in every point with functions to change everything.

There are also many other features like Flickr integration, skinning, fullscreen display, support for Cufon or @font-face and more.

It comes in 3 flavors;

• Lite: with limited features and free
• Pro: with all the features and licenses to a single site
• Multi-Site: with all the features and licenses to unlimited sites

How to join the giveaway?

In order to win one of the 5 Pro Licenses, just comment to this post and winners will be selected on 20 June 2011 (1 week later) with the query below:

SELECT * FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_post_id=2300 AND comment_approved=1 AND comment_type='' GROUP BY comment_author_email ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 5

Good luck!

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Gridless is a boilerplate for creating responsive and cross-browser/platform websites with beautiful typography.

It doesn't come with any grid systems, rather, the focus is on progressive enhancement and being a starting point for any project (which you can add a grid system later).

The framework has rules for CSS normalization (no CSS resets), print styles for optimized performance, an optimal caching and a well-organized folder structure that you may feel comfortable with.

Gridless works on all major browsers including IE6.

Special Downloads:
Ajaxed Add-To-Basket Scenarios With jQuery And PHP
Free Admin Template For Web Applications
jQuery Dynamic Drag’n Drop
ScheduledTweets

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It’s funny that a few years ago, people were all over the new packaging material, plastic. The consumers thought this is the wonder material, the material that’s great for the environment. It’s cheap to produce, easy to work with, and it doesn’t hurt any trees! It was during the time where trees were being cut down indiscriminately; so people were happy that plastic was used for packaging and not paper in order to save the trees. Plastic was believed to be the material that can save Mother Earth.

Fast forward years later and we see the immense effects of using plastic. The problem is, plastic is non-biodegradable and it is hardly reused or recycled. Most people use it on a one-time basis only. Plastic makes use of chemicals and materials that’s harmful to the environment.

We’ve probably heard of environment-friendly packaging design in the packaging industry. It’s the hottest thing today, but it’s big not only because it’s popular, but because it’s good for the environment. Consumer products always have a great deal of impact on the world and our environment. Companies are now taking the responsibility of sustainability to foresee that future generations can still enjoy nature as we do today.

I admire creative and environmentally friendly packaging. The companies’ efforts to save the planet are encouraging. It’s good to know that there are still lots of people who care for mother earth. Here are some of the most creative and environmentally friendly packaging designs that I could find. It’s time to go green!

Yellow + Blue = Green Wines

Have you ever heard of organic wines? If not, let me tell you about Yellow + Blue. This wine brand has four flavors, namely: Rose, Torrontes, Sauvignon Blanc & Malbec. The wine’s packaging is an environmentally friendly carton, with 93% wine and only 7% packaging, containing less carbon footprint.

Lee Paper Bag

Lee has recently come up with a really clever paper bag. The best thing is that it’s eco-friendly and that not a single part never gets wasted. It is designed by Happy Creative Services from India.

Image by The Dieline

How does the Lee Never Wasted work? First of all, the packaging works just as any other shopping bag, which is to hold your purchases. But the one thing that’s so cool is that 100% of it can be reused afterwards. The packaging is made from recycled paper, and can be reused again as a paper bag. However, they can be used for other purposes as well: you can cut out some parts which can be used as a calendar, a ruler, a door sign, a pencil holder, a snakes and ladders game, dice, credit card holder, condom holder, first aid chart, bookmarks, mask, custom black book–even the handles can be reused as shoe laces! How cool is that?

Image by The Dieline

Flat Pack Pocket Lights

There’s something so cool and practical about having a portable light source with you at all times. That’s why flat pack lights are becoming the biggest thing now. They are tiny enough to fit in your wallet, since it is as big as a credit card. They’re not fragile like real bulbs, but make use of LED lights implanted on an aluminum sheet. This is environment friendly, and at the same time, a great tool to guide you to safety in case you’re walking down dark alleys and shady streets.

Hangerpak

Image by Design Reviver

This clever hanger design make use of eco-friendly carton to eliminate using plastic for hanging clothes. It also helps that it looks very innovative and sleek.

Tous H20

Nothing screams ‘eco-chic’ more than the latest fragrance by Perfumes y Diseño. The bottle is 100% recyclable, made from 25% recycled material. The Tous H20 is a marriage between beauty and sustainability, created to help the earth as a part of the sales is donated to providing people with clean water. Not only do you smell good, but you’re creating a cleaner and safer world as well.

Recycle Easily

This is one of the most creative and eco-centered packaging designs that I have found. Recycle Easily is conceptualized by one Brett Allcorn, who encourages people to recycle the packaging they bought. The packaging has a back label that can be peeled off, revealing the return postage so that people can send the packaging back for recycling once it has already expired its use.

The creative packaging design won the Go Green Competition Award.

Eco-Undies

Photo by Best Design Options

Eco-undies are made of organic cotton. They don’t make use of any harmful chemical pesticides, and it’s bleach-free and dye-free.

Gotta Moo

Gotta Moo creates an eco-friendly packaging for their milk products. Everything is 100% natural, they use the sugarcane bagasse pulp paper, coated with sugarcane lignin and printed using vegetable-based inks. The pulp paper is very much recyclable, and it minimizes greenhouse emissions too.

Eco-Friendly Packaging Design Concept for Coke

A design student by the name of  Andrew Seunghyun Kim has recently created a creative packaging design for Coke. The concept hasn’t exactly come off the drawing board, but we are hoping that Coke will be taking this idea into consideration.

Image by WB-3D

The proposed design looks sleek and modern. It’s a lot slimmer and smaller than the packaging used by Coke today; thus encouraging more people to reuse and recycle. It is eco-friendly, stackable and thus perfect to carry everywhere.

We’re hoping that other companies will also follow suit and use eco-friendly materials such as biodegradable plastic, paper, bamboo, or textile. For eco-friendly packaging needs, here are the best companies that you can count on saving the world for the future:

1. Harmless Packaging – Harmless Packaging uses 100% compostable packaging. Harmless Packaging uses materials that starts in Earth harmless & ends in Earth harmless.

2. Wow Spiral - provides eco-friendly packaging solutions for CDs and DVDs. The packaging makes use of recycled material that folds into a spiral clasp, properly securing the CD or DVD inside. It’s highly creative and inventive, so despite being an eco-friendly product, it’s a sure stand out.

3. Plastic Ingenuity – the company has provided green packaging solutions for almost four decades. It has made use of materials that are renewable such as wood pulp, polyactic acid materials, paper and more.

4. Eco Bags – Their mantra is: ‘Cleaning up the planet, one day at a time.’ The company creates organic and sustainable canvas totes, lunch bags, produce bags, water bottles, woven bags, and more.

5. Grow a Tree Bags - The company’s main goal is to help save trees! How? Simply by reusing old designer fabrics and turning them into reusable grocery tote bags! There is a diverse collection of colors, designs and patters you can choose from online.

The fate of Adobe Flash is in a stir lately. Who wouldn’t talk about it when two Steve’s are out there to get it by the neck? Steve Jobs and Steve Ballmer have decided that Flash’s reign is over. At least in the sense that Microsoft and Apple and other major technology companies have started shifting from Flash to different platforms.

What’s in store for developers and users? Users would wonder if they’re affected by this change. Depending on what they use their devices for, it might make or break a lot of things. Take for example gamers. There are major gaming websites that focus on Flash like Kongregate and Newgrounds, I guess Apple users won’t be able to play games anymore. For developers, this might be a problem (or a business) as they will have to rewrite their products.

Apple is a behemoth that does not support Flash. Two Steve’s are actually moving away from Flash, the other Steve is Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO. Imagine that? Two huge industry giants versus Adobe Flash!

Is the future of Adobe Flash grim? Before addressing the real issue here, let’s first look at why Flash is a target and not others.

Why is Flash Widely Used?

Source: Adobe.com

To begin, Flash has been used for a very long time and has widely revolutionized multimedia both online and on handheld devices. Why is it so? Because Flash has solved several problems that people experienced. From handling videos to fonts, to animation and cross browser compatibility, and adding to that the set standards on the web that are always changing. Cross browser and cross-platform compatibility with Adobe Flash is not an issue, unlike many web technologies like HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript.

Another reason for its success is that Flash is mostly used for gaming and entertainment. The majority of internet users use the internet for entertainment.

Is it the End of Flash?

No. To say that it will die off because a new challenger appears is too sensationalist. Since the majority of PCs use it, websites with animations including those pesky advertisements, and thousands of Flash games, it won’t go away easily. It has served thousands of devices and websites; taught in multimedia classes and has produced a lot of creative content without even knowing scripting. Adobe Flash is still evolving, trying to keep up with the fast paced technology.

During college I took a multimedia class. There we used Adobe Flash and created several 2D animations and Flash games. I can say that even if I’m not that good with graphics and design, I can sure as hell create a Flash game and animate your stick man. Is it a useful skill? Maybe it can get you a few ladies to drink with, still it is a very useful skill especially for designers.

So, what can turn the tables? I, for one, loathe the bulky Flash websites (especially those Hollywood film promotional websites), but when it comes to interactivity I’m the first one to worship it. A lightweight competitor like HTML5 will do the trick; CSS3, HTML, PHP5, JavaScript and others would win when it comes to creating dynamic websites.

The problem with these technologies is that the standards aren’t really that standard for everyone. You think you know everything about CSS and HTML and now you can create a super website? Think again. In a few months or years you’ll have to read another manual telling you that there’s another standard. Even if they’re called standards, developers from all over the planet are having difficulties with cross browser and cross platform compatibility.

Websites including YouTube have began using HTML5. There has been a spur of HTML5 games and they are really lightweight.

The question now is, is HTML5 (and others) easy to learn? I can teach a 13-year-old to animate using Flash, but not HTML5 just yet. It still has a long way to go but I’m pretty sure that someday people will come up with drag and drop applications to create rich and dynamic content.

As said, Flash is well-established and can be used by almost anyone.

What about the people saying that Flash is already dead? Are they too optimistic about HTML5? Maybe, since HTML5 still has a long way to go and still has to establish credibility. Something which Flash has. But HTML5 has the ace up its sleeve, and that is the potential to grow further.

What Apple says vs. What Adobe says

When it comes to Touch

Apple claims that Adobe Flash wasn’t made to support touch screen devices. Any other Flash applications and websites will then be rewritten.

Adobe says that the Adobe Flash Player is actually made for the purpose of supporting tablets with multi-touch. And that Flash developers need not worry because mouse events are automatically converted to touch events for touch devices.

When it comes to Battery Life

Apple says that Flash uses too much battery life to be used on mobile devices when playing high-definition videos or games.

Adobe says it will not be an issue since Flash Player 10.1 supports hardware acceleration across mobile and desktop devices.

When it comes to Security

Apple takes a hold of Symantec’s word about Flash being one of worst in security.

Adobe says it is also important to note that Flash is one of the most widely used systems. Comparing it to a discussion I had during college, Microsoft OS is mostly targeted by computer viruses and crackers because the market is in there, many people use it as compared to Linux and Mac OS X.

(see links at article’s end for an in-depth explanation from Adobe and Apple)

Should You Learn Flash?

HTML5 is the next big thing after Flash but do not expect a wide support group for it just yet. If you want to do complex animations, Flash is your way for now. By all means learn how to use Flash, it is widely supported and has lots of features that anyone can use.

But if you are thinking of creating a website with animations and things, you might want to wait just yet. Flash websites were superstars of the past, now they’re just divas that want attention and many people loathe them.

Flash is compatible with almost any browser. You don’t have to worry about cross browser and cross platforms. Of course, we’re not talking about iPhone and iPads. Kidding, Adobe Flash Player 10.1 supports them now.

Now, if you are thinking of creating an HTML5 game, you might not find a very good marketplace for it. Flash still has the biggest audience and established marketplaces for games like Y8, Newgrounds, and Kongregate.

Should you learn HTML5? Well, you can start now. It has a bright future, but don’t expect it to come in a sweep anytime soon. People, like an immune system, are resistive to change. HTML5 is still far from achieving what Flash can do: games, videos, applications, flexibility, and audience.

Weighing Things Up

Photo by darktaco

Adobe Flash wins at:

• Used by almost every PC user.
• Creation of simple to complex animation.
• Bundled up; learning curve is easier because it’s not as diverse as learning HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript and other things.
• Several thousand Flash games that can’t be played on Apple products.
• Devices that allows Flash usage, in my experience, are more fun to deal with. My team and I once created a “hack and slash” game using Flash and we were stunned to learn that our professor saved it on his Nokia and played it there. Fully running. My point is, Flash is great with cross-platform compatibility.
• Cross-browser compatibility too.

HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript wins at:

• All of these are open standards, no more relying on third-party products like Flash does.
• Can be used by most browsers without updating anything.
• When YouTube was still a baby, I usually would see a page asking me to upgrade my Flash player. I haven’t seen it in a year now.
• Adobe Flash wasn’t really built to support touch screen devices. With today’s technology, almost every surface is a touch screen. It doesn’t stop there; the juice of this all is on the web. Little by little desktop applications are leaving the mainstream and are replaced by web-based applications. Lightweight and accessible almost anywhere. This includes games, videos, and other applications.

Conclusion

It is not certain if Flash will be replaced, but it is certain that in the years to come there will be other technologies that will be on par with it. Flash was, and is still, hot because of PCs. In an era where PCs are common household items, Flash sure has found its place. But with today’s rise in mobile devices, lightweight devices, the hassles of using Flash applications will be its own funeral. Even though its future is gravely marked, it doesn’t mean it will fall overnight. There’s still hope for Flash developers out there.

Sources and for Further Reading:

Adobe - The truth about Flash

Apple - Thoughts on Flash

Tell us what you think!