Display Form user interface modules manage the display or 'rendering' of search results in a web application. Display forms create HTML page sections that contain search result displays ranging from simple ones that list single result field values to complex ones that display several result fields and may also contain dynamic controls or respond to user or application contexts. The basic architecture for Display Forms is similar to that for Search Forms, a JSP Custom tag (listed below) that is linked to a configurable DisplayFormRenderer module (see below).

Display Form elements typically employ a configurable DisplayForm Renderer element. These can be used to compose either simple or complex displays and can render result lists in HTML or XML depending on the type of application involved. For example, XML-over-HTTP web services employ an XMLDisplayFormRenderer to return results in XML format. Similarly, the RTI OpenSearch web service implementation uses either an AtomDisplayFormRenderer or RSSDisplayFormRenderer. (depending on how the service is configured) to return search results in Atom or RSS XML formats respectively.