{"id":6105,"date":"2013-08-27T13:22:05","date_gmt":"2013-08-27T03:22:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/?p=6105"},"modified":"2016-02-23T16:19:25","modified_gmt":"2016-02-23T05:19:25","slug":"simplify-online-forms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/2013\/08\/simplify-online-forms\/","title":{"rendered":"Simplify online forms for everyone’s sake"},"content":{"rendered":"

Filling in the account details on a website form\u00a0today I was reminded of how difficult things can be when someone assumes knowledge.<\/p>\n

Yes, we all KNOW that if you assume you make an ass out of u and me. But that doesn’t stop many of us making assumptions that we shouldn’t<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And I suspect that online forms is one area where people just get a form put together\u00a0quickly without really thinking about making the form easy to use and highly effective<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Excerpt<\/a>

Simple text, plenty of white space and provided options make a form much easier to fill in.<\/p><\/div>\n

Contact forms need to be simple to use<\/h1>\n

Today, I was faced with two boxes under the title ‘Your name’.<\/p>\n

So I had to figure out if they wanted Tash then Hughes or Hughes then Tash, or maybe Tash Hughes and the second box shouldn’t have been there at all.<\/p>\n

It was obvious to the person creating the form what they wanted, but not so obvious to me, the paying client.<\/p>\n

With just a little more effort on their part, the form could have been better labelled or set out and thus been much simpler to use.<\/p>\n

Complex and unclear forms lose sales<\/h2>\n

I reread a blog post recently that gave a perfect example of how a simple form impressed a potential client<\/a> – and a vague form (that was also hard to find) turned that client away from the business.<\/p>\n

A poor form can be that serious – people may not be patient enough to work through the issues so you could lose a customer. And possibly earn some bad comments elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Making your forms simple<\/h2>\n

There are many ways to simplify a form, whether it is an order form, contact form or an online survey\/feedback form. And what works with one form may not work well with a different form, so there is no simple answer for making your forms effective.<\/p>\n

However, here are some generic tips to help you\u00a0keep your forms simple:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \u00a0think about what information you really need to meet the purpose of the form THEN write the questions to gather that information. And decide which of those answers is a must-have, and which can be optional<\/li>\n
  2. think about who is going to use your form then choose wording and question styles to suit them as much as possible<\/li>\n
  3. use one label per box*<\/li>\n
  4. provide options to choose, rather than text boxes, where possible. So a\u00a0street or suburb\u00a0field needs to be empty but you can give a choice of states<\/li>\n
  5. in a select an answer question, don’t give more options than necessary<\/a> – if your provided answers don’t cover all possibilities, add ‘other’ or ‘custom’ as your final option<\/li>\n
  6. reduce clutter around the page<\/li>\n
  7. use clear wording<\/a> to explain what you expect in each field<\/li>\n
  8. use consistent wording. For example, if the first field is ‘your name’ make sure the next field is ‘your address’ not ‘my address’<\/li>\n
  9. make the final button obvious – both in placement and size but also in the text you use. It is more effective to have a button that says ‘place order’, ‘send message’ or ‘request quote’ than plain old ‘submit’ – just like the ‘tweet’ button on Twitter and ‘publish’ button in WordPress.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Got any questions about making your forms simpler and effective? Why not ask below as a comment, or send me an email?<\/p>\n

    * If you are using a form with one box per letter (usually only for printed forms), this tip becomes use one label per obvious group of boxes.<\/p>\n

    Image of form courtesy of Love Santa<\/span><\/a><\/address>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Filling in the account details on a website form\u00a0today I was reminded of how difficult things can be when someone assumes knowledge. Yes, we all KNOW that if you assume you make an ass out of u and me. But that doesn’t stop many of us making assumptions that we shouldn’t. And I suspect that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1425,53],"tags":[389,921,1172,554,1403],"class_list":["post-6105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-communications","category-business-info-tools","tag-assumption","tag-contact","tag-form","tag-online","tag-simplify"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t