Commonly used on the WWW in order to obtain information. They are characterized by text entry boxes, radio buttons and check boxes. They bare some resemblance to paper based forms. There is normally text next to a form element, such as name or age. There is normally a OK or submit button which allows the user to say that they have finished. Once OK has been pressed validation occurs. The validation checks to see if the user input is correct, if it is not it will flag up any mistakes.

Forms are very suitable for basic, predictable information. Registration forms, search engines, help pages and CD-ROM based encyclopedias all use forms to collect information. They know what form the information will be coming in and will only handle that sort of information.

An example of a form based interface - Sign up to Hotmail

Main features

• Forms are used to gather information from the user in a structured way.
• Tend to be used by non-expert users to interact with more complicated software.
• Will try to aid the user in entering data including drop down menus, slider bars and calendar views for dates and other such features.
• They tend to only perform a specific, pre-determined, task.