Keep it simple or give it some spice.?

[tonynoriega]

forms.

yep. forms.

my company has a questionairre form for our prospects that is about 20 minute process....about 100 questions using yes/no radio buttons, some text fields...etc..etc...

about 10 pages total... so you have some "next" buttons and such...

the form is old table structure, very plain, borders, some <hr>'s here and there....

very mundane....

i think we should try to spice it up... add some rounded css borders, some colored rows..., nice header background to the title of the page.... just something to make it a bit easier on the eyes...

what do you think?
are forms just boring no matter what you do?

anyone got any ideas to make their forms more asthetically pleasing?

[kaled]

Just my opinion, but I would keep it simple, and clear, with no small fonts. I would also ensure that email boxes are wide enough for longish email addresses and comment boxes are a reasonably size - I hate forms with tiny comment boxes that require unnecessary scrolling.

Too many colors, fonts, graphics, etc. are just a distraction. Once someone has begun the process of filling in a form, they usually want to complete it as quickly as possible.

Concise and clear language is also important to me. I hate badly phrased questions.

Kaled.

[piatkow]

I'll second Kaled's post

[Shimrit]

I'd say it depends on what it is.
If it's B2B you can probably get away with a "boring" form, as long as it's clear and easy to fill out. If it's B2C you might want to make it easier on the eye, as well as have some kind of progress bar.

I'd avoid doing anything that would distract people from actually filling out the form, but anything that helps them along if they are feeling like abandoning the process can only work in your favour.