Offer choices before typing, prefill what is safe, validate where it helps, and never lose work.
Best practices
- Offer choices before typing. Pickers, pop-up buttons and segmented controls beat free text whenever the set of values is known.
- Prefill sensibly, with today’s date, the current location or the last-used unit, but never prefill anything people must consciously decide, such as an amount paid.
- Validate where it helps. Format as people type (phone numbers, codes in capitals), check required fields when people leave them, and check the whole form on save. Errors say how to fix the problem.
- Keyboard first in entry tables. Return moves on, Escape cancels the row edit, Tab follows the visual order. Number fields bring up a numeric keyboard on touch screens.
- Paste works everywhere. Codes, phone numbers and addresses are often pasted.
- Don’t lose work. Navigating away from unsaved edits asks first; long forms save drafts.