Forms Intelligent Guided Test (IGT)

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The forms intelligent guided test (IGT) facilitates the testing of a single form and all of its fields, a single group of fields, or even a single field. Make sure to test all forms including any that might be present in modal windows or dialogs launched from your page.

What the Forms IGT tests for:

form field labels
grouping of form fields
instructions
validation and error messages
reversible submission

note

The forms IGT only covers native form controls; custom widgets will not be included.

How it works

Step 1: Choose Form

All forms found on the page (or selected part of page) under test will be displayed. You will also be given a choice to select a different form in case the IGT did not detect the form you'd like to test.

To highlight a found form, select the appropriate radio button.

Once you have made your selection, choose NEXT to continue.

Step 2: Fields

Optimizing your test

All the native form controls found within the selected form will be detected. Choose NEXT to continue.

You will then be presented with a series of questions for each form control.

Choosing to test a field

Question: Do you want to test the highlighted form field?

You are able to control which specific fields you'd like to test. You can easily skip the testing of specific fields by selecting No. However, if you select Yes, you will be asked a series of simple questions which help the tool raise accessibility issues.

Groups

Question: Is this field part of a group of related fields?

If the highlighted field is in fact part of a group, you will be asked to name it (to help identify the group in any group-related issues raised by the IGT), as well as a series of questions relating to the group, each field's label, and the group label.

note

If the IGT detects fields that appear to be part of a group, it will ask "We think we've found a group of fields. Should the highlighted group of fields actually be a group?" For example, a form's Gender section will commonly have a grouping of radio buttons such as Male, Female, Prefer not to say, etc. None of these radio buttons may make sense unless grouped properly with a label of Gender.

Labels

After answering questions about any potential groups, you will be guided through the testing of the given field's label. Each simple question helps the IGT raise any potential labelling issues.

Validation / Errors

After the label questions, you will be guided through testing the field's validation. This set of questions determines:

if required fields are properly conveyed as required
if error messages caused by submitting the form with the field empty are properly associated with the field
if error messages caused by submitting the form with invalid data are properly associated with the field
if the actual error messages are informative enough for users to fix the errors

Step 3: Form Info

Now that you have tested each form field, the IGT will walk you through questions that relate to the overall form. For certain types of forms with serious consequences for errors, it is critical that a user should be able to review all the data entered and have the ability to edit and correct any erroneous information. You can specify that the form has serious consequences for error by choosing an option in this step. The choices are: