Discuss at length the options for controlling label placement on forms.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

When designing your forms, you need to decide where to position the label text. In general, you have three options, each of which has benefits and trade-offs. The first option is to use top alignment, in which you place each label text above its corresponding text field. This option is good for shorter forms because it uses two lines for every field; however, in a very long form, top alignment would require users to scroll down too much.

The second option is to align the labels flush left. Left-aligned labels are the easiest to read because a user's eye naturally views the left edge of the screen first in languages that are normally read from left to right. The disadvantage of left alignment is that it creates some white space between each label and its form element, which might slow down some users as they enter data. If the form control is to the right of the label, it could produce a ragged look, as the lengths of text for each line are likely different. The form controls would not align vertically.

The third option is to right-align the labels, which creates the closest connection between the label text and the form control. The form control would be immediately to the right of the label, which is text. The form controls would align vertically along the left edge. This is the most commonly used option.