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lecture 9: creative forms

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As I said earlier, the usefulness of forms does not stop with the gathering of information. There are several factors which make forms useful for more creative applications:

  • form elements are quite distinctive-looking; at least, they are different from text and images
  • form elements are quite robust; unlike images, they will almost always load, and do so on a variety of browsers
  • forms are clickable and interactive
  • forms can be styled to fit your site (see later in this lecture).

The "doodle pad" on the right is one example of a creative form. The scrolling "story box" on the fairy tale game is another.

 Click to skip over form elements

Doodle Pad

Create your own design...











Don't over do this kind of thing. Forms are not 100% accessible - imagine what JAWS would make of the form above (I have in fact put a hidden link at the start of the dozens of form elements above so that screenreaders can skip over them all). But it makes for an eye-catching gimmick, at least.

But whether you use forms for their intended purpose or creatively, like this, the principles are the same - and that's what the next slide considers.



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