Even the smallest things are worthy of consideration when it comes to designing the most user-friendly website.

Take, for example, the seemingly humble asterisk. When used as a “required form indicator” should the pretty little star symbol be located to the right of the input field, between the label and the form field, or to the left of the label.

Not sure yourself? Well, one design blogger has gone to the trouble of surveying a host of those-in-the-know to find out the most common placement for the asterisk.

The Smiley Cat Blog (www.smileycat.com) reveals that:

- 48% of commenters prefer to put the asterisk to the right of the input field.
- 44% place the asterisk to the right of the form label (between the label and the form field)
- 8% put the asterisk to the left of the label.

These results are similar to those found by Luke Wroblewski, the author of a book on the subject called Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks.

Does anyone think that asterisk placement actually matters? Especially when it is so often highlighted in red.

Tags: asterisk, friendly sites, luke wroblewski

This entry was posted on Friday, November 21st, 2008 at 3:30 pm and is filed under Website Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Posted by Leon You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.