Building forms has always been the bane of the web developer. Yes, you can rely on the bloated WYSIWYG programs — and risk a flaky form — or you can learn how to build serious, functional and appealing forms from scratch. Here’s how …
FANCY FORM DESIGN, SitePoint’s most anticipated book release this year, is now hitting shelves across the US. Based on one of SitePoint’s all-time most popular tutorials, this expanded guide shows web designers how to create visually stunning and usable web forms.
Readers will learn:
- the basics of grid design and typography
- tips on how to use color and images effectively
- the secret to structuring forms for maximum usability
- how to write useful instructions, errors, and advisory text to eliminate user frustration and form abandonment
- all about styling web forms using CSS to make them appealing
- techniques for jazzing up web forms using JavaScript–such as creating “multiple path” forms with conditional elements, password strength indicators, and autocompletes, and capturing day and month information
Matt Mickiewicz, SitePoint Co-founder says:
”Web Forms–whether securing registration data, or capturing data to complete a purchase–are too often poorly thought-out … With this book, we’re giving web designers the guidance to create forms that are attractive, usable, and accessible across a broad range of devices and platforms.”
By the end of the book, readers will have the code and knowledge they need to build fancy forms of their own.
Jina Bolton is an interaction designer at Crush + Lovely. Previously, Jina worked at Apple, Inc. as a visual interaction designer and front-end web developer.
Tim Connell is a developer with Fresh Interface and a technical consultant for Squiz Australia, who specialize in enterprise content management.
Derek Featherstone is a well known instructor, author, speaker, and developer with expertise in web accessibility consulting.
Fancy Form Design
Tim Connell, Jina Bolton, Derek Featherstone
Publisher: SitePoint, 250 pages
SitePoint titles are distributed to bookstores internationally by O’Reilly Media. SitePoint specializes in publishing fun, practical, and easy-to-understand content for web professionals. Its popular online magazine, blogs, newsletters, and print books teach best practices to web developers and designers worldwide. SitePoint also runs the #1 Marketplace on the Web for buying and selling web sites, blogs, and forums.
O’Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O’Reilly Media has been a chronicler and catalyst of cutting-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying “faint signals” from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.
