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I am working with big forms, some of which might create page scroll and will have inputs placed side by side (up to 4 per line). I have been told that the users of these forms will usually memorize the position of the inputs in the page so they can access them faster. In this scenario, speed is very important because the user will work with high volumes of clients that will go to the counter and give their information for the users to fill in.

I have two questions about the form layout:

  1. Does the scroll make it harder for users to memorize where the inputs are located?

  2. What type of label would fit better: "Title Case Labels" or "Sentence case labels"?

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    Relying on a person's memory is often a bad idea. In this case it sounds like the person can be easily distracted, but the form can also change over time and it also takes time to learn by repetition, especially for a person that is new to the system. How about a table of contents for all fields, where each item is a link that scrolls the field into view and gives it focus for direct input? Commented Apr 14 at 14:58
  • That seems like a nice idea, mainly if I put the fields in one column, leaving space for a table of contents. Commented Apr 14 at 16:15

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Does the scroll make it harder for users to memorize where the inputs are located?

Rather than about the scrolling, I would worry about the four columns layout. Usually one column forms are completed much faster because the eyes don't have to move back and forth all the time. Some very closely related fields can still be placed on one line (like street + house number, or city + post code). Some type of user might prefer multiple columns to have more at a glance and not have too much white space around tho, it depends a bit where the form is placed (like on its own page, in a modal, in a page with other information around...). It might be a good idea to test the different layouts with some users and measure time one task for instance.

It sounds a bit strange that the users might need to memorise the position of some specific fields among many others. It makes me think that maybe you have many optional fields and only a few really relevant ones scattered around, which would raise the question of whether the form can be simplified or if the most important ones can be displayed first. But if all are necessary, I think what really helps memorization (in the sense of users knowing which kind of info they need to give and where to find it) might be having all fields grouped logically under different thematic sections, with titles for each section using a terminology understood and used by the user (and sensible fields and labels as well of course!)

Also if you are worrying about the scrolling, something to consider is also the different screen sizes (or windows sizes if they have multiple windows open and need to look in an other window the info needed for the form...). You might not be able to avoid scrolling by creating many columns, just because users might need to see your form on a smaller width anyway...

What type of label would fit better: "Title Case Labels" or "Sentence case labels"?

Labels of form fields are preferably written in sentence case, because title case is a bit harder to read and should be reserved only for actual titles.

Overall if you want to go deeper in best practices of form layout and presentation I can recommend the book "Designing UX: Forms: Create Forms That Don't Drive Your Users Crazy" by Jessica Enders :)

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