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Computers are supposed to make our lives easier, not more difficult. As usability-conscious designers, we can make our users’ lives easier by thinking about the way people interact with our websites, providing clear direction, and then putting the burden of sorting out the details in the hands of the computers—not the users. It’s that last part that we’re going to focus on here. We’ve all heard and read about big usability mistakes time and time again: “Don’t use images or flash for navigation,” “Don’t use Javascript for links,” and I certainly hope we’re all applying those lessons in our work. It’s often the smallest usability quirks, however, that create the biggest annoyances for users, especially when it comes to HTML forms. Follow these guidelines, and you’ll be off to a good start. Use the right field for the task With so many form elements to choose from, each with distinct advantages and disadvantages, it can be difficult to decide which elements to use in a given situation. Use radio buttons, checkboxes, and select boxes appropriately: for radio buttons or checkboxes, use the <fieldset> and <legend> tags to group the elements logically under an obvious heading. This grouping keeps the form manageable to users, as it can be broken down into smaller pieces in their minds. Jakob Nielsen provides these guidelines for use of checkboxes versus radio buttons: Radio buttons are used when there is a list of two or more options that are mutually exclusive and the user must select exactly one choice. In other words, clicking a non-selected radio button will deselect whatever other button was previously selected in the list. Checkboxes are used when there are lists of options and the user may select any number of choices, including zero, one, or several. In other words, each checkbox is independent of all other checkboxes in the list, so checking one box doesn’t uncheck the others. A stand-alone checkbox is used for a single option that the user can turn on or off. Source: “Checkboxes vs. Radio Buttons.” For fields in which a single selection is required and there are a large number of possible options, consider using a drop-down select box to conserve screen real estate. The barrier between what makes sense as radio buttons and select boxes is somewhat of a gray area and will depend on context. If you wind up with five or more radio buttons, Follow