This article covers a handy usability feature that will allow you to set “smart” default values in your form textboxes. The JavaScript handles three things – coloring (gray for default, black for user-entered values), automatically clearing the field when a user selects it, and automatically replacing the default text if the user de-selects the field without entering anything.

This is particularly useful for forms targeting mobile browsers (such as iPhone or Android, since you can then use the field itself as a label) – or forms where you want to include some “example text” in certain fields. It’s a very clean, intuitive way of improving the usability of any web form.

This article introduces the use of forms in an ASP.NET webpage. Before you begin, you should already have a basic understanding of HTML form elements. If you need a refresher, we will briefly discuss the use of classic form elements on an ASPX page, but the focus of this article will be on the use special ASP.NET form elements.