Research suggests Adobe e-Forms are not user friendly

Organisations around the world are beginning to see the considerable benefits of taking their form processing online but should be very careful when selecting which online form processing solution they choose.

Research suggests Adobe e-Forms are not user friendly

Organisations around the world are beginning to see the considerable benefits of taking their form processing online but should be very careful when selecting which online form processing solution they choose.

Many vendors of online form processing solutions (so called e-Form solutions) use Adobe documents as the core technology within their solutions. However according to Jakob Nielsen P.h.d principal of Nielsen Norman Group and a leading pioneer on 'user experiences and user friendliness of online content 'what these vendors offer is not a user friendly solution. According to Dr Nielsen "PDF documents are good for printing but that's it" - Nielsen goes further and suggests that "While not as bad as in the past, you're still more likely to crash users' browsers or computers if you serve them a PDF file rather than an HTML page.

Particularly alluding to PDF as a solution for forms Nielsen rightly states "The latest attempt to sell PDF is to position it as a tool for data capture through interactive forms. Although not nearly as problematic as the traditional paper documents, this is still a bad idea."

Further findings against PDF for online form processing was highlighted in an article on 21st September 2003, in the UK Sunday Times, commenting on Nielsen's view that Adobe files "are unpleasant to read and navigate online" correspondent Sally Kinnes said this "is spot on" and "pleaded someone please tell the Inland Revenue". Government organisations are moving towards providing online forms as part of the e-Government initiatives underway, and some are using solutions bought from vendors that use Adobe forms within their software as the answer - but surely the Government initiatives were also meant to improve the user experience, in fact as Kinnes is suggesting, those departments that are offering Adobe forms as the solution are creating more headaches in form processing for their users.

To truly reap the benefits of online form processing a solution must be user friendly, Nielsen's research indicates that "users complained woefully whenever they encountered PDF files". Buyers of online form processing solutions should take this research into consideration when selecting which online form processing tool to implement.

iApprove from Clear Vision Solutions is an intuitive web based solution for processing form approvals which uses HTML, standard web pages, for form creation and presentation ensuring complete user satisfaction. iApprove also goes further than most PDF solutions by offering comprehensive workflow and conditional routing - the result is a much stronger overall user experience, coupled with significant time and cost savings for the buyer.

To find out more please contact us to arrange a demonstration of iApprove at your convenience information@clearvisiongroup.com

Marketing Manager

Clear Vision Solutions

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Tel: + 31 70 3521 908

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