I think I would be inclined to put your optional/required questions on a
separate page. The user could fill out the first set of questions, and
then, at the bottom of the page you could have a button for "Submit" and
another button for "Optional - 3 More Questions". When they get to the
second page, all fields are required. Buttons at the bottom of the page
would read - "Submit" and "No thanks - just send in my previous answers."
That way, if they chose to look at the 3 questions, they can still skip
them.

I have not run into this problem before, so I don't have any usability data
to back it up. But I agree with your assessment that users won't read the
explanatory text, so this is one alternative that might work.

-matt

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Vision & Logic
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-----Original Message-----
From: ACM SIGCHI WWW Human Factors (Open Discussion)
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bryan Grubaugh
Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 2:39 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Non-required item grouping

Hello all,

I'm currently working on a form for a registration process.  On the form
are 3 questions that, overall, are not required, but if you do choose to
answer them, you have to answer them all.  I can use visual cues to show
that they are "asked together", but am running into trouble about how to
represent them as being "not required, but required if you choose to
answer them."  By this I mean that if you choose not to answer any of
them, it's not a problem.  If you choose to answer even one, you have
to answer all 3.


Has anyone run into this problem before? If so, did you find a solution
that users liked, or understood?  I find that putting verbage on the
page does little more than add more words a user won't read.

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