What best practices should be followed when designing HTML forms for PHP processing to ensure data is correctly captured and submitted?

When designing HTML forms for PHP processing, it is important to ensure that the form elements are properly named and have appropriate validation to capture the data correctly. This includes using the POST method in the form tag, setting the name attribute for each input field, and validating the data on the server side to prevent any malicious input.

<form method="post" action="process_form.php">
    <input type="text" name="username" placeholder="Username" required>
    <input type="email" name="email" placeholder="Email" required>
    <input type="password" name="password" placeholder="Password" required>
    <button type="submit">Submit</button>
</form>