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According to www.w3.org a normal HTML contact form is defined as: “It is a section of a document containing normal content, markup, special elements called controls (checkboxes, radio buttons, menus, etc.), and labels on those controls. Users generally "complete" a form by modifying its controls (entering text, selecting menu items, etc.), before submitting the form to an agent for processing.”

Though forms are simple in usage designing these forms can be tricky. There are few things which should be taken care of while designing these forms. Such important web design tips are mentioned ahead in the article which should be kept in mind while you hire a web designer for designing a form for your site.

Labels

Label in a form is something without which the functionality of the form won’t change at all. But not using the labels in the forms reduces the user accessibility. Labels signify what is the input box is for. Labels mention or give an idea to the user what is to be entered in the related input box.

:focus Pseudo Class

Using the :focus pseudo class a web designer can apply styling to the input and text areas in such a way that those stylings take affect only when the user click that particular area. One of the examples of this is to change the border color of the input area where the user is going to input some information.

Website Privacy Policy

If the web designer is designing a form which asks the user to input their personal information then there is a privacy policy required for that particular form. There are many websites available where privacy policy documents can be found. The blank spaces on these online available sites with the relevant information and should be included in the legal document package.

Keep minimum required fields

Required Fields on a form are the fields which are compulsory to be filled and many a times turn out to be a very annoying. This is the case especially with the contact forms. The main aim of a contact form is to get in touch with the person who is filling the form for asking the questions and then the inquiry itself. Thus in all these fields none of the fields should be kept compulsory because it is not required. A name if entered is good but is not necessary.

The forms should be as simple as much possible and keep the information which is needed. Also the required fields should be kept only if necessary because insisting on filling a field should be avoided.

 If there are a number of required fields in your form the users might either leave your web page or the website itself.

Validation

A web form validation means a set of computerized rules to make sure that the information which is entered by users make sense. Thus in a form the web designer might set particular format for postal address or would keep a validation such that only numbers can be entered in the phone number field and no other values would be accepted. Many a times this would create a problem because every person has different methods of entering the value in a single field. Thus keep validation only if necessary and such that only the unnecessary values are neglected.