Forms

Design forms that meet AA accessibility standards and work with assistive technologies.

Writing forms

Writing labels and legends

Labels and legends should be clear, short and direct.

Follow our style guide to keep terminology consistent. You may need to explain terminology – see UX writing basics.

Follow these general rules:

Use sentence case

Aim for two to five words

Clear, direct and front-loaded

Avoid…

Articles (a, the)

Softeners (please)

Adjectives (next, another)

Questions – see below

Writing labels and legends as questions can backload information. For multi-step forms, it’s usually better to phrase the heading as a question than use a shorter label.

❌ Pension value What’s the current value of your pension? A rough value is fine. £ [ ]	✅ What’s your pension value? Pension value A rough value is fine. £ [ ]
Long label, busy form This is harder to read.	Glanceable form A short label makes the form less overwhelming.

Writing helper text

Helper text helps users fill out a form. It can communicate:

What to include or exclude

Where can a user find this information

The format they should use

How accurate do they need to be

Why we’re asking for the information

Common errors

Helper text is not a substitute for good form design. For example, it’s always better to show a unit prefix – £ – than add explainer text saying ‘Enter a £ value’.

Follow these rules:

Use sentence case

Aim for two to five words

Clear, direct and front-loaded

Avoid…

Articles (a, the)

Softeners (please)

Adjectives (next, another)

Possessives (my, your, our), unless they aid understanding

Don’t ‘overexplain’.

Too much helper text can make a form feel overwhelming. If research tells you no one is confused, don’t add helper text.

❌ Retirement age Enter a number 55 or above. We’re looking for the age you think you’ll stop or reduce work and start using your pension as your main source of income. [ ]	✅ Retirement age When your pension will be your main income. Age [ ]
Overexplained This helper text is very thorough – but makes the form look overwhelming. The ‘over 55’ part may well be unnecessary if most users enter a higher number, so it may be better dealt with as an error message.	Short and simple We’ve cut extra words but conveyed the same message. Note that this is still more than the recommended two to five words – sometimes this will be necessary. In this case, research may tell us to ask the question in a different way, such as ‘When do you think you’ll stop or reduce work?’, to reduce ambiguity.

Writing error messages

Error (or validation) messages) tell a user when they have entered incomplete or incorrect information.

Follow these rules:

Use sentence case

80 characters or less

Clear, direct and front-loaded

Avoid ‘please’ or ‘sorry’ – get straight to the point

Error messages are not a substitute for good form design. Labels and helper text should help users enter information correctly.

Example:

❌ Value £ [ 10,000 ] We’re really sorry but you can only use this tool if your pension value is above £50,000.	✅ Pension value Must be over £50,000 £ [ 10,000 ] Enter a value over £50,000.
No explainer, wordy error Users have no way of knowing this limitation until they enter a wrong value, and the error message is long and ‘back-loaded’.	Less frustration Explainer text minimises frustration – and the error message is short and direct.