In search of: form design pattern

I need to come up with a good pattern for designing a form. It has the following characteristics:

There are about 10 "sections" (related groups of inputs)

The sections are of varied size, ranging from one dropdown selection, to a multi-column table of several rows that needs to be filled out

The total of all such sections would make the whole form bulky if I tried to present it on one screen. I'm debating using different chunking patterns such as an accordian or tabbed form and wondered if anyone had an example of a favorite pattern they would recommend.

TiA, --Alan

Alan - I'm sure you might have encountered this already, but LukeW's book on forms is worth a read, particularly if you are going to be designing more in future.

(apologies for this) , but I had an idea for handling forms that is a bit different. I did promise to put a demo up somewhere but the pressure of work had to take precedence. I'll try again tonight and post a link so you can all have a look and offer comments.

Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=43336