This was a workshop ran at UX Bristol 2012 about online forms, conversation and emotion. The workshop involved some role playing, acting out the conversation. These slides have been amended for reading purposes.

1. Forms of Emotion
Mike Harris
@BlueBoard2
People. hate. forms

2. This Morning’s Agenda
Introduction
Exercise 1
- Feedback on Exercise 1
Exercise 2
- Feedback on Exercise 2
Exercise 3
Q&A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5vrkH5m
Remember, a form is anything
with an input field, and anything
requiring input is a conversation 2

3. Like human conversations, too
much of one thing becomes
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annoying and off putting

4. Successful Conversations
Two-way balanced processes
Both structured and flexible
Responsive
Not Taxing
Logical
Productive
Prepared
Successful interview technique
relies on being both structured
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and flexible.

5. Emotions
A few example emotions that
occur when filling in forms 5

6. The Expectation of Emotions
Will I be able to complete this?
Will it ask me difficult questions?
Will I have all the knowledge it needs?
Will it crash before I finish?
Will I get stuck in an error loop?
Will it save my answers?
“Formaphobia” or “Form Angst”
But including the angst before a
form… 6

7. Emotions in reality
A ‘timeline of emotions’ actually
looks more like this 7

8. Exercise 1 – Preparing the questions (15 minutes)
Groups of 3 to 4 people
One person assigned as “The User”
One person assigned as “The Questioner”
One or Two people assigned as “Observers”
The “User” is to work separately from the other 2
or 3 in the group for this exercise
Please read instruction sheets.
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9. Get them to do something first to
avoid ‘too much planning’: E.g.
Get them to declare their goal 9

10. An example model of beginning
with the user’s goal. Is it the best
way? Not in all cases. 10

11. It doesn’t have to be pretty or
contain a cute speech bubble to
follow the model! 11

12. A nice example of reflection (top
right) being made available when
needed, and some more chunks
of ‘planning’ coming in at a later
stage 12

13. Exercise 2 – The Conversation (10 minutes)
The Questioner will now ask the questions to
The User, while The Observers watch.
Please refer to instruction sheets.
If you finish before the end: Switch question
sets with another team and change roles.
Conversational Strategies – which ones did you use?
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14. Every question reads “the
applicant”. It turns out this is a
nice example of legal restrictions
on UX. Ideally, questions should
be phrased personally using
“you” 14

15. Forms often use ‘prep’ questions
which can tailor the rest of the
form. (In the exercise, a question
on age could have been added to
avoid asking more complex
questions later on which were
age-dependent) 15

16. Can we even use an anchoring
technique to make people feel
better about answering
questions? I.e. “Number of
questions” starts at the max, and
then reduces as the form loads? 16

17. Can we go further with rebuilding forms?
This one changes the language the form is written in and the
question set based on these prep questions.
Can we rewrite questions based on anything else? Gender?
Age?
Can we refer back to earlier answers?
What else can we do to simplify
the question set, rebuild the
form on subsequent pages and
hide the complexity of the form? 17

18. Which of these is the best way of
asking this question? 18

19. In conversations, you
acknowledge an answer with an
“uh huh” or “okay”; can we show
acknowledgement on forms
(even when we are not using in-
line validation)?
19

20. There are many types of
conversation. Can we draw out
any strategies from them to
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apply to forms?

21. Exercise 3 – Discussion (5 Minutes)
How many different types of conversation are
there?
What are the emotional circumstances of each?
From your own experiences, how else can we
apply real world situations or conversations to
interaction design?
Stay in your groups or swap around if you prefer.
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22. Thanks for Listening!
Mike Harris @BlueBoard2 @We_are_Nomensa
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