For my school district, the Returning Student Update form is about 10 screens long. There are several basic web application design flaws that make completing the process much more difficult than it should be:
1. The Phone Number fields require the user to type in dashes. This is poor design. If phone numbers in the United States had variation then this might be understandable but they don't. Please change the fields (and there are tons of them) so that the field requires 10 digits without dashes (just ignore the pressing of the dash key).
2. Indicate immediately if a field is invalid. Currently, a user can type in a phone number without dashes and proceed to the next several screens. At the end, when the user is asked to digitally sign the form, the entries are finally validated. This is waaaaay too late. If invalid fields place the user all the way back to the screen with the first error (guess what...probably a phone number without dashes), the user must scroll down to find the field(s), make corrections, and then click Next Next Next...to get back to the digital signature page again. And, again, if there were still mistakes the user is taken all the way back again.
3. Very slow submission of data during the digital signature process. Let me guess: If my Internet connection dropped before this final step there would be no way to continue where I left off. I hope I am wrong about that but I bet I'm not. Come on, folks. This is 2019. No excuses for this.
4. "Don't forget to click Save and Sign Out" What in the heck is this? OMG, this is just the cherry on the top of the mediocre experience. What happens if the user misses this step? See item 3.
Lastly, there are just way too many screens. And I'm not even in California or New Jersey where I bet this app is even more painful. Not sure what to do about this since the districts want to collect seemingly endless amounts of information on kids and parents these days but by the end I was really feeling my privacy was being violated.
This all adds up to a user experience that could be better. If I were on a school board and considering what application to approve for purchase to collect data, this one would not get overly high marks on the front-end. It needs to get much faster, better handle formatted data, and prevent all of the retracing of steps. Thanks.
