Should I use labels or hints in forms? [closed]

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Closed 8 years ago.

I'm not sure which is the better way of how to design forms.

• labels seem a little bit pointless when we have hints to achieve the same thing (they take precious space)
• on the other hand, a hint dissapears when you put a character into an InputText
• maybe worse is a case when you have your form pre-filled (you are editing an item for example) - then you can see no hint

Is there any recommended solution or should I just stick with the one I prefer myself?

Answer 1

As you have doubts yourself, whether hints are sufficient I would go with labels. The more obvious things are for the user, the better.

Especially when working with pre-filled forms the hints are not visible to the user and thus of no use whatsoever.

And you should use labels placed above the input fields, instead of labels besides. This seems to be better rated by usability gurus and doesn't reduce the space for the user to enter the text. That it needs more vertical space is not such a big deal as the user is used to vertical scrolling anyways, especially on mobile devices with limit screen space.