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World Leaders in Research-Based User Experience

Marking Required Fields in Online Forms

Summary: Do you need to mark fields as "required" in forms on your website or in apps?
What if all fields are required? And what is the best way to show that a form field is
required?
3 minute video by Raluca Budiu Topics: Web Usability

Marking Required Fields in Online Forms

Related Article: Marking Required Fields in Forms About the Author

Using an asterisk to mark required fields is an easy way to improve the Raluca Budiu is
usability of your forms. Only marking optional fields makes it di icult Director of Research
for people to fill out the form. at Nielsen Norman
Group, where she
consults for clients
from a variety of
industries and
presents tutorials on
mobile usability,
designing interfaces
for multiple devices,
quantitative
usability methods,
cognitive