Learn to design forms that users fly through without doing years of research

If you want to eliminate friction using proven patterns that increase conversion and minimise errors, this video course is for you.

“Adam’s course is worth every penny. The lessons are backed by solid research and rationale. Since following Adam’s guidance, our conversion rate has increased significantly.”
Esben Lorenzen Design Lead at Pento

Is this you?

  • You’re a UI/UX designer, content designer or frontend developer who works on a lot of forms
  • Your forms are long, unwieldy and full of complexity, but you’re not sure how to make them better
  • Your stakeholders insist on asking users unnecessary questions and it’s impossible to get them to remove them
  • You’re quite confident at designing basic forms but lack clarity in designing more complex interactions and journeys
  • Your colleagues sometimes design inaccessible patterns and it’s hard to get them to reconsider their solutions
  • You want to increase conversion and reduce error rate but you’re not clear about how to do that

If you said yes to any of the above, that’s why I made this course...

Why I made this course

Headshot of Adam Silver

I’m Adam, a designer and former frontend developer from London, UK.

My mission is to create simple digital products that are intuitive and effortless to use.

I’ve been doing this for 20 years for organisations like Tesco, BBC, Just Eat, and more recently GOV.UK.

I’ve always been obsessed with forms. I became so obsessed that I wrote Form Design Patterns published by Smashing Magazine. I’ve also ran live workshops focused on forms UX with up to 80 people.

Now I don't claim to know it all.

But I have helped 100s of designers, content designers and frontend developers transform the way they design forms (and the surrounding product).

I redesigned a checkout journey for the world’s leading digital takeaway delivery service. And orders increased by 37,000 a week (a 5% increase to conversion).

And I redesigned an appointment booking journey for one of the largest, high-profile GOV.UK services. And completion time went from 6 minutes down to 1 minute (a 500% increase in speed).

I’ve watched 100s of users fill out forms. I know where they struggle. And I can tell you the same design mistakes happen again and again.

But it’s taken a lot of effort to get to this point:

  • I’ve spent a countless hours coding, designing, prototyping, researching and learning what works and what doesn’t

  • I’ve spent loads of time trying (and failing) to convince my colleagues to practice good design, not just make things look nice

  • I’ve read many articles and books on form design. But often the practical advice is missing, misleading or just plain wrong

If this sounds familiar, here’s a quick overview of what you’ll learn...

Module overview

There’s no fluff or filler. The core content is designed to get you from ‘form design zero’ to ‘form design hero’ in just over 2 hours.

Module 1

Nailing the basics

We’ll blast through a huge range of common form design mistakes in order to master the fundamentals and design sophisticated, accessible and mobile-friendly interactions.

3 lessons, 32 mins

Module 2

Kill your questions

How to convince stubborn stakeholders to kill unnecessary questions in just one 60-minute meeting. This step-by-step process is a bit magical.

3 lessons, 8 mins

Module 3

Form validation

Discover the plethora of validation patterns that degrade UX. Then I’ll break down the most robust and accessible validation pattern. I’ve used this since 2008 and I have no issues to report in user research. You’ll also learn how to write error messages.

5 lessons, 27 mins

Module 4

Multi-step form flows

Learn to audit, diagnose and redesign a real-life multi-step form flow containing a huge range of common UX mistakes. Designed for first time users and repeat users alike. Get ready for lots of ‘before and afters’ plus the rationale to go alongside each one.

5 lessons, 38 mins

Module 5

Go faster with lightweight but powerful tooling

No code, no Figma. Just a proven, lightning-fast process to design forms as a team, focusing on the details that matter most.

2 lessons, 9 mins

Module 6

Supersized forms

Learn the design patterns I’ve used to help users fill out complex forms that take hours, days or even weeks to complete. Backed by research.

2 lessons, 18 mins

I was hesitant to sign up because the course didn’t seem long enough to justify the price. But I was wrong. The course is packed with tips. I can confidently say that I’ve already improved the UX of several projects by applying what I’ve learnt.”
José Pedro del Teso UX/UI Designer at Nateevo

Form Design Mastery cheat sheet

Every video lesson covers multiple rules which I’ve distilled into a simple cheat sheet containing 52 rules.

Page 5 from the cheat sheet explaining that every field needs a clear and visible label.

A few tips from inside the course

  • The best way to implement hint text. This technique gives screen readers the best UX. (Module 1.2 4:37)
  • A low-effort way to track the ‘health’ of your form. I use this method to hone in on problem areas without having to run usability tests. (Module 3.3)
  • How most forms fail to follow one of Apple’s accessiblity heuristics. You probably know the heuristic but you’re unlikely to be applying it to your form controls. (Module 1.3, 2:10)
  • The first question to ask yourself before you start designing a form. This could save you and your users a lot of time. (Module 1.3, 6:56)
  • The perfect pattern for presenting errors. I’ve used this technique since 2008 and I’ve not seen it cause one problem in usability tests. (Module 3.2, 1:25)
  • How to convince stubborn stakeholders to kill unnecessary questions. This simple process works like magic and makes you look good at the same time. I rcommended it even if you don’t have stubborn stakeholders to deal with. (Module 2.1)
  • How to make sure errors don’t get cut off on mobile. This JavaScript enhancement makes sure mobile users get an optimal UX. (Module 3.2, 2:55)
  • An interaction to help users pick one option from a long list like a country selector. This bespoke solution combines 3 separate patterns together to give users the best UX. (Module 4.2, 10:10)
  • How to solve the hint text problem. The problem with hint text is that some users don’t read it. Here’s an elegant solution that guarantees they will read it. (Module 4.3, 4:30)
  • Why tabs don’t belong in forms. Here’s the pattern I recommend using instead (backed by years of research). (Module 4.3, 4:10)
  • How to make sure users don’t abandon your form as they get towards the end. This pattern builds trust, reduces mistakes and increases conversion - win, win, win. (Module 4.4, 0:35)
  • How to design supersized forms (forms that take days, weeks or even months to complete). Here’s every pitfall, pattern and detail you need to know to get users to complete monster-sized forms with ease, backed by research. (Module 6)
  • How to write crystal clear error messages that significantly reduce the risk of abandonment. Most designers ignore error messages or botch them up completely. Here’s how you do the opposite. (Module 3.4)

And so much more. Seriously, this is fraction of the tips you’ll learn from the course.

Form Design Mastery community

Every student gets access to the Form Design Mastery community to ask questions and get support.

Discussion post inside the Form Design Mastery community area

What former students say

Adam’s course is full of real world practical takeaways that I used to improve multiple journeys. Adam’s lessons are useful, interactive and engaging. Highly recommended.
Chi Wai Li Senior Product Designer at Floww.io
Adam’s Form Design Masterclass was great. I’d highly recommend it to frontend developers and interaction designers who are serious about making stuff that works properly for everyone.
Adrienne Lai UX Lead at Exchange Lab
I highly recommend this course because Adam’s approach is very pragmatic and practical. No fads, always gets to the essence of the problem. The patterns in this program will still work 10 years from now.
Toshi Hayashi Product Designer at Palo Alto Networks
I highly recommend this course. Adam’s knowledge of form design is insane, and he imparts this knowledge in well-thought-out lessons. The Q and A calls offer a space to share real-world challenges, and Adam collaborates with the group to provide insights and explore solutions.
Stacy Hyun Art Director
Forget flashy Dribbble designs, Adam’s program is essential for anyone wanting to design great forms. Adam’s course is worth every penny. The lessons are backed by solid research and rationale. Since following Adam’s guidance, our conversion rate has increased significantly and our stakeholders are delighted.
Esben Lorenzen Design Lead at Pento
Since taking the course I’ve received many comments from stakeholders about how much quicker I design forms and how consistent my designs have become. The course has become a resource that I come back to many times across projects, which is why I recommend it to every designer who works with forms or services.
Dan Pape Senior UX Designer at Next
Before taking the challenge, I felt like I couldn’t confidently explain my design decisions. Now when someone questions my design, I’m able to confidently communicate every aspect of the approach in a simple way. The challenge has made my life so much easier and I’m really looking forward to seeing this community grow.
Joe Horton Interaction Designer at UK Government
This course helped me think through all important aspects of form design and confidently discussing and reasoning each design decision made. I love the style which is very practical and hands on. I can recommend asking questions for the Q&A, where Adam quickly grasps the presented problem and gives very valuable feedback.
Mikkel Sonnenschein Product designer
As a frontend dev, I was aware of many problematic form patterns to avoid. But I didn’t know what patterns I should use instead. That’s no longer the case because Adam has equipped me with solutions to build great forms. I’d recommend the course to anyone who believes in building accessible, robust and useful products for the web.
Nathan Knowler Senior Frontend Developer
This course makes it easy to understand what makes a well designed form. I was struggling to explain best practices when recommending a design approach. This course solves this in an organized way. It also covers how to make forms accessible. Even though my coding skills are beginner, I will return to this part of the course to improve.
Roberto Andrade Selibe UX designer/researcher
I highly recommend Adam’s form design mastery course. He brings real-life examples to the course and backs up design choices with real data. I work in a space where quantitative data is king, and since employing some simple changes around field labels and removing unnecessary form steps, we’ve seen an increase in qualified form completions on our sites.
Ryan Weisser Senior Product Designer
There are so many decisions to make when creating a form. As a designer who doesn’t specialise in form design, it isn’t easy to know the best practices for every type of component for every kind of form. Form Design Mastery is a cheat code for me to understand what makes a good form in many different scenarios. I cannot recommend this course enough for any digital designer.
Adam King Product Designer at Forme
Adam’s Form Design Mastery course is a must for anyone who is in the business of designing and building forms that convert and work accessibly. Even as a very experienced designer myself, the tips and discussions really helped give me a deeper level of understanding and techniques that I’ll be using going forward. The recorded lessons are well structured and the Q&A calls are brilliant!
Sajhd Hussain Senior UX Designer at John Lewis
Adam's insights on form design have really helped in my role as a product manager. The course is thorough and covers pretty much everything you need to know to create functional, user-friendly forms. He provides clear explanations for why with good evidence to back up the decisions. Even after the completing the course several months ago I find myself returning to it to further cement my knowledge.
Rachel Martin Product manager
Before taking the challenge I struggled to arrive at clear ideas on how best to design forms in varying situations, so I lacked confidence when presenting my ideas with stakeholders. Since taking the challenge I feel confident I’m making the right decisions. As well as that I feel I have access to a friendly community with experience in different types of form challenges that I can ask for help when faced with a challenge myself.
Simon Young Senior UX Engineer at Claromentis
Being able to join Adam’s course was a bucket list moment for me as a designer. Following his advice, we’ve seen abandonment rate and exit rate decrease, whilst conversion rate has increased. I’m in awe of Adam’s knowledge and expertise when it comes to form design. The data and insight we’ve captured through this whole process, from attending Adam’s course to embedding it into our ways of working has helped us shape and develop our forms.
Paul Braddock Lead Designer at Co-op Group
Before the course I struggled with the detail and the confidence of my convictions around form elements and building forms. I felt inadequate and on a limb when trying to explain design decisions to teams. But since taking the course, I’m much more confident in my own decisions. To anybody who’s on the fence about taking the challenge, just do it. You’ll learn so much from Adam.Thanks so much Adam, you’ve got so much knowledge over so many years. It’s fantastic. Highly recommended.
Rob Langdon Senior interaction designer
Having taken countless design courses, the one course I always recommend to my colleagues is Adam’s form design masterclass. Plain language ✓ Accessiblity ✓ Breaks down the why and how, not just the what ✓. Adam is superb at explaining things in ways anyone can pick up and understand. Being able to interact with Adam and get a deep dive into his research and rationale was wonderful. This course is absolutely worth the investment. His work has helped me build out a career in design and for that I’m eternally grateful.
Josh Kim Accessibility Lead at VA.gov
I was recommended Adam’s course by two colleagues. It helped me step back and take a look at a form and see what the bad practices are and what to avoid. And to get a good understanding on the whole of what good form design looks like and how we can make them better, more accessible and more user friendly. The community allows you to discuss problems and raise questions with other designers which is so valuable. It's an absolutely brilliant course, I'd highly recommend it to anyone that's considering it and I hope you enjoy it.
Claire Hart UI designer at Next UK
I'm a Product Designer and my knowledge of front-end is very limited. I've been on a personal a11y journey for about four years now ever since moving from agency work (high-level UX work essentially) to becoming a Product Designer. This course felt like a bit of a cheat code, to be honest. I've learnt so much in such a short space of time. It's been so valuable to my journey to becoming a more inclusive designer. I can't wait to incorporate everything I've learned into my client's work. Feeling empowered and inspired! Thank you so much Adam.
Adam King Product designer
All of us have been on websites and had the unpleasant experience of filling out poorly designed forms. But what makes a good form? Is it layout? Is it typography? Is it text? Is it any of these or all of these? Attending Adam Silver’s Masterclass on Form Design opened my eyes to the myriad factors involved in good form design. The best thing about the course is that Adam is able to back up all of his form rules with real life data. Good form design moves from the realm of art to science. You will not look at forms the same after Adam’s course.
Les Ansley CEO at Ibhu
I have been following Adam's work for a long time and was very pleased to see he is running this course on form design mastery. I wanted to attend the course as I struggled on deciding the best stratergies for form design. Often repeating research with every new project. With Adam's course I am now able to refer to well researched and user tested forms designs and his rules of form design form a core of my form work. If you work desiging or building forms at all this course is for you. The next ten years of my career will be based on what I have learnt in this course.
Damian Seftond Web developer
I’ve been always asking myself if the forms I’m designing are good enough...is this the best I can do? So, reading numerous articles, and attending webinars and courses still didn’t help me to find the missing piece. Thanks to Adam’s Form Design Mastery course now I’ve found a new perspective and a fresh point of view I have been searching for! I’d highly recommend this training because Adam has lots of experience that is based on research, well-thought-out interactions, accessibility, ‘how-to’ guidelines for development, and a welcoming atmosphere for brainstorming. Thank you, Adam!
Nataliia Bieschastnova Senior UX/UI Designer at Kyndryl
Adam’s Form Design Mastery course provides clear guidelines and rules to reduce complexity, promote clarity and make things straightforward for users. The tools and techniques he teaches help ensure the right questions are asked, at the right time, in the right way. I also found the community to be welcoming, engaging, supportive and full of talented folk. Adam gave expert advice and focused coaching throughout. The course has helped me identify many improvements to our products. I’m confident that this will enable us to give users a more consistent, usable and accessible form experience.
Jonathan Mitchell UX Designer at University of Cambridge
Adam has distilled all his expertise in designing forms in this course. I'm not exaggerating, I consult his course cheat sheet docs at least once a day while designing. He's helped me grasp that in form design, it's unnecessary to reinvent the wheel in the small details, if you are looking for good usability, following the basics work. I've also learned to identify which navigation pattern to use depending on the context to fill in a form easily. Plus, he has helped me on Q&A calls to solve some job-specific doubts. Which has helped me a lot. Considering that a huge part of online content involves forms, the course content is extremely valuable.
Paula Cayuela Product designer
Let’s face it, at the enterprise level a lot of Product Design is actually Form Design. It’s not exactly glamorous work, but it’s extremely important to get right. What this course does great at is giving clear “DO’s” and “DO NOT’s” when it comes to designing forms. Adam is refreshingly clear in his approach. Adam’s background designing for extremely large and diverse user groups makes it easy to trust his expertise and adopt his approaches. Since completing the course we’ve begun updating our design system and design documentation. We now have a much clearer framework to follow and less ambiguity around the choices we make and why we make them.
Andrew Bloyce Senior Product Designer at Tanda
In early 2023, I started a new job as a product designer at an organization where the experiences we are building are largely forms. My imposter syndrome came on strong! I'm so glad I jumped on Form Design Mastery challenge. Adam does an excellent job building a foundation with the basics and then introducing more complex concepts. I was able to instantly use knowledge and techniques from the course in my daily work. On top of that, Adam has a humble and kind approach to questions and welcomes input from others. Form Design Mastery is more than a one-time challenge. I've returned to the content frequently for refreshers and to ask questions of the community.
Hannah Campbell Digital Product designer
Before taking this course, my biggest struggle was being the single voice amongst 20+ teammates and stakeholders who constantly questioned everything I proposed. While I had some confidence already, the tools and techniques I’ve learnt have given me enough confidence to stand my ground. As a result, our forms have been drastically simplified in every way so much so that other areas of the business have reached out to my team for help. If you’re on the fence about taking this course just know that the only outcomes for yourself, your organisation and your users are positive. Thanks Adam, the challenge flew by but I’m still getting value from the community to this day.
Paul Douglass UX Designer
Everyone working on digital experiences should take Adam’s Form Design Challenge (and read his book!). We need more proponents of the kind of 'boring' (but wickedly effective) design Adam advocates for. My main reason I took the Challenge was to argue more effectively for this and I can confidently say I certainly added to the arguments in my toolbox. Adam’s examples are clear, hard-hitting and full of helpful advice, including code snippets explained at a level every product designer should be able to understand. And even though I was very much a convert already, the Challenge definitely helped address some of my less-than-stellar practice and regain a commitment to simple and inclusive design at every level of detail.
Marcos Villasenor Lead UX Designer at CI&T
I’m a dev with little design experience, so it was hard to confidently justify my design choices to stakeholders and involving them in the design process was messy and frustrating. But just after finishing the course, I delivered a government form in which stakeholders wanted to include 7 complicated form fields. Using techniques I learned from the course, I managed to negotiate that down to just 2 (with one of those being optional). This course is not just for people who make forms in civil service. The awesome thing is that Adam shows how these techniques and principles also apply to commercial services. On top of that, the course gives you access to a community of clever designers and frontend developers from all sorts of industries.
Pandu Supriyono Web Developer
As a content designer, I know how important form design is, but often I’ve had to take what few wins I can get, while still shipping forms that are bloated, poorly designed, and hard to use. The challenge reinforced a lot of what I already knew and taught me a whole lot more besides. Even better, it gave me the tools to push forward the best decisions for our users. I’ve already used Adam’s process to remove unnecessary questions and slim down a form that’s used by my company’s high-value accounts. And even though I‘m not an engineer, the code examples gave me the vocabulary I needed to convince developers to make changes - for instance, I was able to explain that a new approach to Date of Birth inputs was actually easier for us to validate. Building great forms is the real work of UX design, and no one can teach you more about how to do it than Adam. I can‘t recommend the challenge highly enough.
Mitch Krpata Senior content designer
At first I was hesitant to sign up because the course didn’t seem long enough to justify the price. But I was wrong. In every lesson I kept learning new ways for doing better. Information I hadn’t heard of before and which I felt was thoughtfully structured. The course is packed with tips that provides specific and actionable advice on making interfaces usable and accessible for everyone. Adam covers most of the patterns and practices you can find in forms and guides you through the different aspects that determine their impact on UX. I can confidently say that I’ve already improved the UX of several projects by applying what I’ve learnt. Last but not least, if there was something not covered in the recorded material, Adam and others in the community have been quick to give feedback on the particular problems I’ve shared. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to learn about designing usable and accessible forms to the highest standard.
José Pedro del Teso UX/UI Designer at Nateevo
Having worked in GOV.UK for several years, I was familiar with some of the GDS patterns and good practices Adam presented in the course. That said, I found the course an excellent refresher and picked up some wonderful resources and learnings from Adam’s vast UX experience. For example, the process to remove questions is an excellent way to ensure you only get the info you need, allowing your user to move smoothly through your product or service. Further to that, I found advice on tracking errors valuable. These are just a couple of examples that were helpful to me. Another big takeaway was removing any fancy UX and keeping things as simple as possible. This mindset will make the experience better for users, and your business will most likely benefit from that. There is something here for everyone, public or private sector and practitioners of all levels. Adam also has live calls where he is personally available to chat through any design challenges you want to bring. Another great resource!
Tom Brown Interaction designer

Get access today

Due to the time-intensive nature, the coaching package has limited spots available.

Pro

$647 USD

Get access today
  • 20 video lessons packed with tips
  • 10 recordings of past live Q&As
  • Worksheets and practical missions
  • Form Design Mastery community access
  • Form Design Mastery cheat sheet
  • All bonuses (see below)

Coaching

Limited availability

$1297 USD

Get access today
  • 20 video lessons packed with tips
  • 10 recordings of past live Q&As
  • Worksheets and practical missions
  • Form Design Mastery community access
  • Form Design Mastery cheat sheet
  • All bonuses (see below)
  • Private 1-2-1 Zoom call for 60 minutes (personalised workshop and coaching)

If you’d like to sign up 4 or more team members, I offer discounts of up to 25%. For more details send an email to [email protected].

You’ll also get these bonuses

Bonus 1

How to ask users for a date (video breakdown)

Many products need to ask users for a date whether it’s entering a date of birth or booking a holiday. But dates are notoriously hard to design.

What you’ll learn:

  • The 5 different patterns you can use depending on the context
  • How to design and code a close-to-perfect accessible date picker that works flawlessly for screen reader users and keyboard users.
Bonus 2

How to stop users from submitting a form more than once (video breakdown)

Without intervention forms can be accidentally submitted more than once.

But this can cause usability issues. For example, if an order is placed twice, users are charged twice. Then they have to contact support to get a refund.

Painful.

What you’ll learn:

  • Why disabling the submit button on submit is the wrong way to handle this
  • How to stop users from submitting a form more than once (the right way)
Bonus 3

Form Design Mastery vault (49 videos)

The Form Design Mastery vault is a perfect companion to help you design forms. Each video addresses a specific question or discusses improvements to real life form flows.

What you’ll get:

  • Video lessons answering questions like: Is inline editing better than going to a separate page?, How would you design an optional file upload form?, Is it sometimes better to use buttons instead of radio buttons?
  • Mini design crits working through real forms that students are designing such as a car insurance form, case working system and calculator UI
Bonus 4

How to ask users for a phone number with forms specialist Caroline Jarrett (60 minute video recording)

Caroline runs through the most user-centered way to ask for a phone number (which is 10x harder than it sounds).

What you’ll learn:

  • Why accessibility is important in form design
  • What the WCAG guidelines and best design systems in the world tell you about how to design the perfect phone number input (not much)
  • How to approach designing a phone number input in a user centric way that works for everyone no matter what

FAQs

What if you don’t cover solutions to my particular problem?

Great, I want to know what you want covered so that I can incorporate it into the course. If you want to be sure before you join the course, send me an email.

Is the material only applicable to sites like GOV.UK?

No. While I’ll show you a lot of things I use in the public sector, 99% of the patterns I share will work just as well in the private sector. In fact, I consider knowing them to be a competitive advantage for the private sector.

Do I need to know how to code?

Knowing some HTML would be useful, but it’s not essential. I’ve had UXers and content designers who don’t know how to code go through the course without a hitch.

The reason I teach code in some parts of the lessons is because UX is impacted by the code directly. But you can still gloss over the code or pass it on to your developers.

Is the course only applicable to websites? What about apps?

The course is primarily for people who design and build products and services used within a web browser. But most of what I share is applicable to apps too.

What’s the refund policy?

I do not offer a money-back guarantee. Form Design Mastery is a great course and I’ve described it accurately on this page.

But you don’t have to take my word for it. Scroll up to see some of the feedback I’ve gotten from former students.

I’d also like to remind you that once you take the course, you can post questions to the community or directly to me. Either way, I’m happy to help.

If you have any other questions, send me an email.

“The one course I always recommend to my colleagues is Adam’s form design masterclass. Being able to interact with Adam and get a deep dive into his research and rationale was wonderful. This course is absolutely worth the investment.”
Josh Kim Accessibility Lead at VA.gov