The work that I do is with marketing teams, really, or businesses that require some sort of entry or request forms, forms that track information gathered from contractors, independent contractors, vendors, or other people. We’re constantly looking for ways to make the form experience better and easier while still getting the required information, which is why we have required fields. It’s a way to ensure that none of those details are missed. Then we can take it up a notch by having character limits or minimum character requirements.
Of course, this creates a bit more friction and requires more input from people, but this is the situation where we want the information we’re getting to be as accurate as possible, as close as possible, especially when dealing with people’s observations. We want those observations to be as detailed as possible. We want them to give us what we need to hear and see.
Now, we need required fields in forms, along with character limits or minimum character requirements. We want the information to be as complete as possible. But we also need to create it in a simple way, which is why, if it’s a longer form, we’re going to have to break it into smaller bits and pieces and see how we can allow people to save their progress or save their answers on the form. It’s generally a better option and much easier for them.
We want things to be easier for our people. We want them to be able to come in and use the tools, knowing that the tool has their back. We want them to know that they can retrieve their information. We don’t necessarily want them to be able to change it at will, but once they finally submit it, we should have options. We can say, okay, after a certain amount of time, the option to edit expires, and we work with that. All of this is a logical process that has to be planned from the start. And even if it isn’t planned from the start, we improve as we go. We look at user behavior, we look at how people respond to certain features that we put in place, and then we improve them. We change things. We make them better. We add this, we remove that, we take this out, we put that in. It’s all just a continuous process.