My favourite online form in the world
– posted November 6th, 2009 by Randall Snare Comments (3)
We’ve talked a lot about designing forms (Niamh wrote about that yesterday in fact). Forms are tricky to design, but essential to get right, because in most cases, at the other end of the form (checkout) is money. Your users abandon your form because it’s convoluted and annoying and you don’t get a sale (or subscription or whatever else you want your users to do).
But what about forms that users must fill out even if they don’t want to? Where design and content don’t matter? How does that form spiral out of control?
In the case of the US’s Electronic System for Travel Authorisation, it spirals and spirals until it may as well not be in English anymore.
Photo by Matt Coleman
ESTA: Useless but Mandatory
Most of you have probably filled out this form, because you must to travel to the US. This apparently gives the government some sense of control, even though they aren’t very good at keeping track of illegal immigrants.
If you must get to the end of a form, then you will, no matter how annoying the form is. Just how annoying? Question A:
“Do you have a communicable disease; physical or mental disorder; or are you a drug abuser or addict?”
Poor leper. He’s dying for some sun and sand in Miami, but oops — now he can’t go. He was going to wear a turtleneck through customs, but this form forces him to admit his leprosy and foils his travel plans.
Check out the list of the hottest communicable diseases.
Question B:
Have you ever been arrested or convicted for an offense or crime involving moral turpitude or a violation related to a controlled substance; or have been arrested or convicted for two or more offenses for which the aggregate sentence to confinement was five years or more; or have been a controlled substance trafficker; or are you seeking entry to engage in criminal or immoral activities?
Technically, working on a Sunday constitutes moral turpitude (according to the Bible), so what is the travelling workaholic to do? He wasn’t arrested for it, but still, should he click yes? He certainly doesn’t want to something morally unconscionable in front of the US government.
Question C (the best of the lot)
Have you ever been or are you now involved in espionage or sabotage; or in terrorist activities; or genocide; or between 1933 and 1945 were you involved, in any way, in persecutions with Nazi Germany or its allies?
Waterboarding isn’t a problem, but terrorists always fold under e-forms. And thank god for this form, keeping out those darn Nazi children, now decrepit.
If you ever feel bad about your online form, just travel to the US, you’ll feel much better by comparison.
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Categories Design, Site reviews, Usability, egov
3 comments so far
1. Stewart Curry on Nov 6th, 2009 - 14:36
Somewhere deep in the pentagon, a Google Alert pops up and a 3rd level clerk adds a certain Randall Snare to a certain “not dangerous but still a wiseass” list, therby ensuring “special treatment” on subsequent trips stateside!
2. Ralph Smith on Nov 10th, 2009 - 11:20
Good post, I find poorly designed forms hugely frustrating and I have often abandoned them.
3. Jacko on Nov 11th, 2009 - 14:13
To be fair, this isn’t so much a form design problem, as a ‘vague paranoid legistlation’ problem.
There’s no clearly-defined legal definition of what constitutes a “crime of moral turpitude”, for example, so they can’t just give you a list of them to check.
But if they used some user-friendlier term instead, and you ticked ‘no’ when you should have ticked ‘yes’, your lawyer could argue that the wording didn’t mean exactly the same as the CMT legalese. So they really have to use the legalese to cover themselves.
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