You just want access to a coupon code, or you’re trying to read more than the first two paragraphs of a blog, but you’ve got to fill out a contact form first. You’re trying to convince yourself it’s worth it, but after they ask what your spouse’s occupation is and how many pets you have, your user experience has tanked. It’s just too many questions. Here’s a page though that is definitely worth your time … our awesome resources.
Here are a few tips for preserving the user experience with good form design:
Use consistent design: Your contact form should capture information in a way that seems like a natural progression. If you begin with a box that’s bordered with seafoam green and then they’re led to another box that’s in a completely different design format, they may wonder if they’ve ended up on the wrong screen.
Provide context for errors: Is there anything more frustrating than being told your form wouldn’t submit, but they won’t tell you why? As a user, you proofread your form, looking for where you might have had a typo or missed a checkbox. While you’re telling visitors to your site exactly where to find the troublesome field on your forms, you should also make sure fields are easily noticeable. A tiny checkbox with 8-point font is likely to be ignored.
Limit your fields per page: Don’t make your contact form a sea of questions. Limit the number of questions you allow on a single page. You could even try just one question per page and ask the visitor to click through to answer each question. It keeps your guests from zoning out as they fill in fields.
Use right-size fields: Unless it’s for a highly-variable field, such as “full name,” you’ll want fields to leave no room for questions. For instance, any field with numbers should be exactly the length of the digits required; otherwise, you’ll have visitors wondering if they’re putting in the wrong information. For instance, have you ever entered your credit card number and immediately wondered if you missed a group of digits because the field looked much too big?
Make it glance-able: People rarely read contact forms or other similar web pages; they scan them. Make your contact form easy to scan by labeling buttons and fields correctly.
Your user experience can be enhanced by the right form design. Contact us at SJC Marketing to talk about novel ideas for creating contact forms that are easy and convenient for your target audience.