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Web Guidelines: MIT Libraries
Guidelines > Forms > Forms Checklist
Forms
Checklist
When planning
a form, feel free to ask Nicole (hennig@mit.edu)
for
advice on content before asking Marion (mlcar@mit.edu)
to build the form.
Here are a few questions to ask yourself when creating a
form:
- Is
the audience library staff, MIT users, or outside users?
- Does
it need to be restricted so that only MIT users can access it?
(on
or off-campus)
- What
email address should the form results be sent to?
- Are
there any fields that you wish to require (i.e. they can't submit
the form without them)?
- Would
you like to send users to a "thank-you" page after filling out
the
form?
- Would
you like to send users a copy of their request via email?
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Audience |
| library
staff |
Use
staff web space |
public
surveys
(anyone) |
For surveys, contact the Director’s office, which is responsible
for the Libraries' Zoomerang account.
Either someone
at that office [diroff-lib
at mit.edu]
or Lisa Horowitz [lisah
at mit.edu]
can give you the account's username and password.
There is an information list called zoomerang-lib for people who
use zoomerang. The Director’s office sends messages to that
group occasionally, and others use it to ask if someone is actually
logged on or forgot to log off in the past, when the login is blocked. |
public
(MIT only) |
Use
"mitonly" directory on public web (see Nicole hennig@mit.edu
for permissions).
path:
/afs/athena.mit.edu/dept/libraries/www/mitonly
Use
"formstext" directory for the associated "txt"
file.
path:
/afs/athena.mit.edu/dept/libraries/www/formstext
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| Creating
the form |
| Create
your form using Dreamweaver |
See
Fill-Out Forms
Quick Guide from CWIS. |
| Make
required fields |
We
use javascript to make certain fields required. Please ask Nicole
Hennig hennig@mit.edu or
Darcy Duke darcy@mit.edu for
help. |
| Form
usability hints: |
Reset button
Don't
include a "reset" button in most cases. Too many times
people click it by accident, erasing all their work filling out
the form! |
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Submit
button
Put
a descriptive name on your button, such as "send" or "send
form". |
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Check
boxes
Use
a different "name" for each box in a set, but the same
"value" for each, such as "yes" or "XX".
That way you can also see which items they didn't check on the
output
email message. |
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Radio
buttons
Use
the same "name" for each button in a set, but different
"values" for each. You must do this in order for the
button
to work properly and allow only one choice. |
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Drop-down
menus & scrolling lists
Make
the first item say "--select one--", or "--choose
a department--", or some such relevant statement. Make it
the
default selected item. That way if someone forgets to make a choice,
the output won't be whatever your first choice was in the menu.
(Aero/Astro
used to receive a lot of false requests before we changed this!) |
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Text boxes
When
using a text area with multiple lines (where you expect users
to type a few sentences), include this tag:
wrap="hard"
If
you don't include this, sometimes the email output will result
in one long line of text going off the edge of the page (wrap="physical"
doesn't always work). |
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Proofread
name/value pairs
When
finished making your form, be sure to take the extra step of proofreading
each name and value. These are extremely important to the succes
of your form output. The script behind the scenes needs to match
these to your email output page (the "txt" file). |
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Form action
A
sample path:
<FORM METHOD="POST" ACTION="http://web.mit.edu/bin/cgiemail/afs/athena.mit.edu/dept/libraries/www/formstext/standards.txt">
Everything after the path in red/bold is your specific path,
the red/bold part needs to stay the same for "cgiemail" to work.
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| Creating
the output file |
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Use
"translateform"
in Athena to create the initial file.
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"Translateform"
is a Perl script that converts an HTML file into a text template
file formatted for use with cgiemail. You may need to add the
"cwis" locker to enable the translateform command.
Example:
add
cwis
translateform -p formname.html formname.txt |
| Example
from our BookPage
form (an MIT only form): |
From: [email]
To: circsearch@mit.edu
Subject: BookPage
Errors-To: hennig@MIT.EDU
owning-library: [owning-library]
pickup-library: [pickup-library]
author: [author]
title: [title]
call-number: [call-number]
volume: [volume]
year: [year]
comments:
[comments]
name: [name]
email: [email]
phone: [phone]
Department: [Department]
status: [status]
-------
Date received:
Date shipped:
NOS:
Search status: |
| Output
email usability hints: |
From
Make
sure your form asks for their email and then use it in the "from"
field.
Some situations make use of a list created for the purpose of
a form, in that case use the listname in the "from"
field.
(Our
ILB & RSC request forms do this). |
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To
Here's
where you enter the email of the person or group who should receive
the form output.
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CC
It's
a nice idea to copy the output email to the person who sent it,
so they can confirm that it went through. This is especially
true
if your form goes to a "thank-you" page after they
submit
it.
CC:
[email] |
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Subject
Write
a descriptive subject line so that you can recognize it in the
context of all those zillions of email messages you receive.
If
you are using Eudora, you may want to set up a filter for moving
mail with a particular subject line into a different mail folder.
Eudora
filters tutorial - Windows
Eudora
filters tutorial - Mac
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Errors-to
It's
a good idea to make the errors-to go to one person in your group
so they can see which users didn't get their confirmation because
they didn't enter a valid email address. Any invalid email address
will bounce back to whoever is in the "errors-to" field. |
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Leaving
spaces
Leaving
spaces between groups of fields in the email makes it easier to
read. It looks nice to put large text fields on the next line
down from their field name.
Comments:
[comments] |
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Readable
labels
You
may change any of the labels to be more human-readable without
affecting the functioning of the form or of the script. Only
the
values in brackets must match what's on the form.
Last
name: [lname] |
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Extra text
You
may add any extra text on the output email that will assist you
in processing it. The free text below was typed at the end of
the txt file in order to be used on printouts for staff to write
on.
Example
from BookPage email output:
Date
received:
Date shipped:
NOS:
Search status: |
| Final
hints |
| 1.
Test the form |
Put
your own email address in the "To:" field of the txt
file
while you are testing it. |
| 2.
Make sure the values match: |
- what
the HTML page displays
- what
the value is in the code
- what
the value is in the txt field
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| 3.
Make sure the email output looks like you want it to look |
Send
it to a couple more people in the group who will be receiving it
so they can comment. |
| 4.
Test required fields |
Try
submitting the form with each of the required fields left blank. |
| 5.
Add thank-you page |
It's
a good idea to wait to add a thank you page to your form until you
are sure everything is working correctly, since the form will give
you an error report if it is not sent directly to a thank you page. |
| 6.
Final step |
Change
the email "To:" back to who should receive the form
output.
Send
the form URL to the group you've created it for and tell them
it's ready. |
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