Friday, February 13, 2015

forms - For required fields, should we add the red asterisk before or after the field label?


Should we add red asterisk before or after the label of required fields, i.e., to the left or the right of the field name? My boss prefers to add the asterisk before the labels, but I like to add them at the end. Which is more user-friendly?


Job creation form



Answer



I've never actually conducted any research, but I don't imagine it will matter so long as it's consistent, and the opposite side to that you dock your labels to. If you align field labels to the right and right-align your asterisks, you'll create an odd-looking ragged effect.


Apart from that, I'm not convinced it matters. Some might suggest otherwise by claiming it's better to read the asterisk first, but I'm not convinced that users' eyes will read text in order, rather than locking to points of interest (which seems a more accurate representation of how human reading actually works).


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