What’s wrong with this question from a web form I recently came across?
Creating great web forms is not easy. There are so many details to get right, and you really need to consider who your particular audience is. In this case one improvement that could be made would be to order the options in age order instead of alphabetical order. So for example:
- Under 16
- 16 – 18
- Over 18
That said, unless you can’t ask for a specific age for some reason (like user sensitivity or legal requirements), I would recommend simply asking for the user’s age. There is a heavy cognitive load to this question currently, partially because it’s out of order, but also because we don’t usually think of our age in these terms. So a simple “What is your current age” would make it a faster question to answer for most people.