[Sigia-l] Design of forms on web vs paper

[Ziya Oz]

Jessica Enders:

> "As a matter of best practice, should forms on the web be designed to
> look like their paper equivalents? Why/why not?"

Leaving the noxious "As a matter of best practice" aside, this is a matter
of apples and oranges.

Is it entirely possible to take an apple and resurface/paint it to make it
look just like an orange? Absolutely. Does that make the apple an orange?
No.

While paper and electronic forms can be made to look alike, they are
different and often serve different purposes and offer different
functionalities.

A static paper form can only offer a minuscule fraction of the
functionalities of a dynamic electronic 'form'. Perhaps the most important
distinction being the ability to auto-(re)configure as information is added
because gathered information can be queried and decisions can be made in
real-time to re-configure the remaining portions of the form. So it would be
possible for instance to reduce a 20-page paper form to a single electronic
'page' to get the same results.

Collecting information (from people who otherwise have access to the web)
via paper forms ought to be criminalized.

-- 
Ziya

It depends.
If it didn't, you'd be out of a job.