Palmer Web Marketing had a terrific post about web forms recently.  I must be turning into a Geek if I am getting excited about a post about form design, but he made some great points.  The purpose of putting a form on your website is to motivate someone to action.  Too often poor form design does just the opposite.

Here are just a few of the 25 very practical tips. ( Relevant for Small business owners or anyone who wants to improve their web design.)

1. Ditch the Captchas: Captcha’s are great for blocking spam, but some evidence suggests they are just as good at blocking conversions. A little spam isn’t the end of the world, and definitely isn’t worth losing conversions over. If you must use a Captcha, make sure it’s easy to read.
2. Remove Unnecessary Fields: Do you really need to ask for your customers date of birth and gender? Even if your customers aren’t concerned about privacy issues, odds are they’re lazy and might just abandon your excessively inquisitive form. Here’s some great advice from Get Elastic on registration forms.
3. Keep It Simple: Just because we can use CSS to do all sorts of fancy things with text boxes, doesn’t mean we should. Keeping form fields simple will ensure that customers understand their purpose and won’t confuse them with design elements.

For the other 22 tips, you will have to read the original post!