overall form structure and previous studies focusing
on date entries.
Regarding web form improvement, Bargas-Avila
at al. study (J.A. Bargas-Avila et al., 2010)
summarizes 20 guidelines for usable web form
design. The list is divided into five sections: form
content, form layout, input types, error handling and
form submission. Several suggestions include: place
the label above the input field (“Label Placement in
Forms :: UXmatters,” n.d.); ask one question per row;
use radio buttons or drop-down menus for entries that
can easily be mistyped (Linderman et al., 2004); for
up to four options, use radio buttons (Healey, 2007);
order options in an intuitive sequence (Beaumont,
2002); for date entries use a drop-down menu when it
is crucial to avoid format errors (Christian, Dillman,
& Smyth, 2007). Seckler et al.'s empirical study
(Seckler et al., 2014) aims to challenge the research
described and applies holistic approach in order to
evaluate guidelines' effect on efficiency,
effectiveness and user satisfaction. The results
revealed that improved web forms resulted in faster
completion times, fewer submission trials, and fewer
eye movements.
Jensen et al.'s research (Jensen et al., 2020)
compared different country entry elements, such as
drop-down menus, radio-buttons and text fields with
autocomplete. What concerns task completion time,
the radio-button interface was found to be the slowest,
while text fields were proved to be significantly
faster. Even though, no significant difference
between the drop-down menu and text-field could be
found.
Desktop date entries were analyzed by Bargas-
Avila et al. (Javier A. Bargas-Avila et al., 2011). They
compared six date input methods: (1) three separate
text fields; (2) drop-down menu; (3) text field with
the label on the left; (4) text field with the permanent
label inside the box; (5) text field with a temporary
label inside the box; (6) calendar view. Wrong format
and wrong date errors were counted; completion time
was measured, and user satisfaction questioned. The
fastest completion time was noticed when using
versions 3 and 5. Drop-down menu and calendar view
showed no formatting errors, but they also had longer
input times. Also, more incorrect dates were captured
for the calendar view.
Methods for specifying dates in mobile contexts
were investigated by Turkcan et al (Türkcan & Onay
Durdu, 2018). The study was conducted in order to
evaluate text box, divided text box, date picker and
calendar view for date entry. As in the previous study,
this research tested task completion time, number of
errors, and satisfaction, too. In terms of completion
times, even though the text box was found to be the
fastest, no significant difference between the text box
and the divided-text box was being found. Calendar
view proved to be significantly slower. Also,
participants made no mistakes when interacting with
text boxes, whilst calendar view was found to be the
most error-prone. Finally, the greatest satisfaction
rate was shown by divided-text box followed by text
box.
3 DATE SELECTION IN THE
WEB
An analysis of the 10 most visited websites in retail
(amazon.com, ebay.com, rakuten.com, etc.), social
media (facebook.com, twitter.com, instagram.com,
etc.) and information technology (google.com,
office.com, zoom.com, etc.) sectors was performed
(“Most Visited Websites - Top Websites Ranking for
May 2022 | Similarweb,” n.d.). Results showed that a
drop-down menu for date entry was the most popular
(retail – 83%, social media – 100%, IT – 100%).
Spanish insurance companies with the heaviest
website traffic (mutua.es, generali.es, etc.) are using
more diverse date entry elements, such as radio-
buttons, text-fields, calendar views (“Most Visited
Websites - Top Websites Ranking for May 2022 |
Similarweb,” n.d.). Some of those input methods have
already been analyzed by previous studies (Türkcan
& Onay Durdu, 2018), whilst radio-button analysis
for date entry was not noticed, thus made in this
paper.
4 METHOD
This study uses similar methodologies to the ones
used by Bargas-Avila et al. (Javier A. Bargas-Avila et
al., 2011) and Turkcan et al. (Türkcan & Onay Durdu,
2018).
4.1 Experimental Design
As a first filter, different date entry methods were
evaluated using Goals, Operators, Methods, and
Selection Rules (GOMS) method. GOMS allows
estimation of the time required to complete different
tasks on the GUI (Card, Moran, & Newell, 1983),
while the Keystroke-Level (KLM) extension
minimizes the effort needed to accomplish the
calculations (Setthawong & Setthawong, 2019). The
theoretical concept is widely known and used in