Summarize after entering details

March 31, 2010 | By Heidi Adkisson

In our usability studies, we often see users pause when they are asked to give something a title as the first step in a data-entry task. The problem seems to be that they are being asked to summarize something they haven't yet created. I suspect the folks at Get Satisfaction also observed this, and therefore created their form with the title after the description entry.

Get Satisfaction's Ask A Question form

I would further suspect that this placement improves the quality of the title. Who hasn't started writing and discovered that what you planned to say differs from what you wind up saying?