Functioning Form: 2007 Retrospective

by December 27, 2007

As 2007 comes to a close, we present a Functioning Form anniversary special: seven of 2007's public and personal favorites. For even further nostalgia, check out our six favorites from 2006, five from 2005, and four favorites from 2004.

Public Favorites (the most popular articles of 2007)

Primary & Secondary Actions in Web Forms

"In order to assess which design considerations are most pertinent for primary and secondary actions, we tested six variations on 23 people using eye-tracking and usability metrics."

IA Summit: Best Practices for Web Form Design

"In my Best Practices For Web Form Design talk at IA Summit 2007 I walked thorugh the importance of Web forms and a series of design best practices culled from live to site analytics, usability testing, eye-tracking studies, and best practice surveys."

Video: The Shifting Role of Design

"Titled The Shifting Role of Design, this presentation provides an overview of why design skills, methodologies, and deliverables have increasing value for companies in today's global, networked economy."

Keynote: Designing for Web 2.0

"In my talk I outlined several trends on the Web today and their impact on the visual and interaction design of Web applications."

How Designers Build Strategy

"My How Designers Build Strategy workshop at Yahoo! Design Week focused on why design considerations can add value to strategy development."

Web Form Design in the Wild, Part I

"It’s not hard to find lots of examples where these crucial experiences could be improved through better Web form design. In fact, it’s worth looking at a few Web forms in the wild to see what lessons they hold."

Selection-Dependent Inputs

"Selection-dependent inputs are, in essence, a pretty simple concept: When someone initially makes a selection from one or more options in a form, they must provide additional input related to the selected option before submitting the form."

Personal Favorites

Strategy with Design: Podcast, Slides, and Transcript

"Jared Spool at User Interface Engineering graciously posted a multimedia package of my Strategy with Design: Using Design to Articulate and Define Strategic Direction talk from User Interface 11 in Boston."

Audio: Get Unstuck

"We discussed ways to keep teams from getting stuck in process, project, and people muck and responded to audience situations during a “lightning round” of Q&A."

Audio: Web Application Page Hierarchy

"I discussed how we use the Web and why understanding how we make sense of what we see allows us to create Web applications that communicate what they do, how to use them, and why people should care to try."

SxSW: A Conversation with Henry Jenkins

"Henry has been studying social mediums for years and discussed his insights in that area."

Web 2.0 Expo: Web 2.0++

"This talk at the Web 2.0 Expo argued that basic human needs form a compelling framework for understanding the explosion of Web 2.0 and what might come after it."

MIX07: The Emotion of Customer Experience

"Clued In author Lou Carbone’s The Emotion of Customer Experience talk at MIX07 outlined how companies can create on-going emotional connections with their customers by managing experience “clues” that grow loyalty and value."

Design Thinking: The Next Competitive Advantage

"Roger Martin’s Design Thinking: The Next Competitive Advantage talk at Yahoo! this week outlined design thinking, why it is important, and how we can overcome conflicts that arise between design & business."

More retrospectives: six favorites from 2006, five from 2005, and four favorites from 2004.