Design a form to make data entry easier

The Japanese concept of Poka Yoke - "Mistake Proofing" - is common-place in manufacturing engineering. Assemblies are designed so that it is physically impossible to put them together in anything other than the right way. This idea seems to have been slow to reach PCs. There are still machines where mouse and keyboard have identical plugs and where sound cards have three identical sockets close together.

You cannot do anything about those physical problems but you can improve the quality of data entry by making it more difficult for users to make mistakes when filling in forms. A little careful thought when youre designing a form can make a big difference to the accuracy of data entry.

• Set default values where they'll be helpful. If most of your customers are in Birmingham then make 'Birmingham' the default town and '0121' the default dialing code.
• If the field has to be three groups of fours digits separated by dashes then give the user three text boxes separated by dashes and reassemble the three components into the full text before saving it.
  
• Use dropdown lists if the user has a choice between just a few different values in a field  dont ask the user to type the same few values in time and time again.
• Make sure the user can tab around the fields on a form in the right order. Select Tab Order from the View menu when you are designing a form.
• If users are entering data from paper forms then design the screen form so that the fields are in the same relative positions. If the paper form has LastName before FirstName but your form has FirstName before LastName then errors will be made.
• Choose the right data types and sizes. UK Postcodes are eight characters long at most but if you give the user twenty characters then theyll be tempted to type something else here.
• If you ask the user for a date then consider using a calendar control instead of a plain text box.
• If a calendar is not possible then display the day of the week to help the user:
  
• Calculate the date for the users. If deliveries take ten days then default to a date ten days from today and add the logic to avoid Saturdays and Sundays.
• Choose a font where the user cannot confuse '1', 'I' and 'l'. The font on this page might not be suitable. Could you easily tell the difference between '1', 'I' and 'l' above?

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