Étude empirique de formulaires en vue de leur utilisation sur des assistants numériques personnels

This article presents two empirical studies on the use of paper and digital forms, one about 17 inspectors in a mobility situation, working in five application domains and using a total of 38 different forms (mainly paper), and the other about 54 forms used in a university of Quebec. The goal of the project is to know the characteristics of forms in use in order to identify the requirements to satisfy for their usage on PDAs whose small size is a challenge for forms. Results of the two studies, based on 89 paper and digital forms, provide several statistics on the numerous elements of a form, namely the format, number of pages, number of sections and components per section, presence of initials and logos, tables, signature section, reserved section, assistance to the user, etc. These results are a solid base of reference for the development of a tool to help in the creation of forms for PDAs.