eb Developers constantly make trade-offs; sometimes sacrificing usability for speed and sometimes sacrificing speed for usability. One example of such a trade-off becomes evident when you consider the task of creating a multi-page form. Multi-page forms are common, because on one hand, developers try to avoid lengthy pages that force the user to scroll more than is necessary. On the other hand, developers attempt to avoid expensive return trips to the server to serve multiple pages when one will do. When you separate multi-page forms into separate Web pages, the complexities of storing state come into play: Multi-page forms are more difficult to manage than single-page forms, because developers must store the user entries from preceding pages and create navigational aids for moving forward and backward between the form’s pages.When you decide to opt for a multi-page form over a long scrolling from, you then have to decide how much of the form to display to the user on each page, as well as how many trips (pages) to the server you can tolerate. So the problem is:
How do I create a multi-page form that minimizes both scrolling and the number of round-trips to the server?
Place all the HTML code for the form on a single page, with each page wrapped in a
Solving the Multi-page Form Problem
The solution to the multi-page form problem is deceptively simple. The sample code (see Resources) for this solution sets up some default display conditions for the user to see when the page loads, then provides chunks of a lengthy form in bites that users can digest. At the bottom of each form chunk, a button provides navigation to the next chunk of the form. For all but the first chunk an additional button allows the user to back up. The trick is to wrap the chunks of the form inside