Online forms are great tools for your business to use in many different ways. They can be used for gathering intel on customer demographics and interests, customer or employee satisfaction surveys, and contact forms on your website–just to name a few. And with so many important jobs, it’s essential to understand how to use forms correctly.
Creating a form without keeping the user experience in mind, implementing a form incorrectly, and other online form mistakes can irritate customers and respondents, causing them to exit out of your form and refrain from filling out others on your website or that you send out. Obviously, we want to keep this from happening! You’re spending the time and resources creating these forms for a reason, and you want to keep the user experience pleasant and simple. So let’s go over a few online form mistakes that infuriate users, and how you can avoid making them.
1. Creating ugly forms.
If there is one single thing that will deter someone from filling out your online forms, it’s their visual appeal. Creating forms with differently sized boxes, random fonts and colors, and no redeeming visual qualities will cause a page visitor to run away screaming.
Instead, you want to use a quality form software to create and design your form using your business’s brand colors and fonts. Even something you create with a third party service should still have your mark on it! Be sure to also include visually appealing graphics and imagery on your form’s landing page to draw the user in.
2. Ignoring the mobile experience.
When it comes to online forms, are people actually filling them out on mobile? This study says online surveys are completed on desktop computers 81% more than on mobile. With 80% of internet users also owning and accessing the internet from a smartphone, you don’t want to alienate a large part of your audience.
So it’s important to do one of two things: consider the mobile experience in your form creation, or target your form or survey to desktop-only users.
Now, what do we mean by this? Well, mobile users don’t want to have to type a lot. They’ve got a small keyboard and it takes awhile. Instead of asking short answer questions, you could include a lot of multiple choice questions that make it easy for mobile users to run through.
However, if your form or survey needs to have detailed answers, let users know to access it from a desktop. Or if you’re sending visitors to the page from digital ads, make sure you’re only targeting desktop users.
3. Including too many steps.
Keep your form to the absolute bare minimum to increase conversions and submissions. Some people will be willing to complete each blank, but others will see a long form in front of them and immediately exit. When it comes to your contact form or newsletter signup, between 1-3 fields is all that should be necessary.
4. Not including enough information on your landing page.
Don’t let users be sent to a landing page with nothing but a lengthy form. You need to explain what the form is for, and why they might want to fill it out. Furthermore, don’t slap your newsletter sign up or contact form on your website without a little explanation of why someone might want to sign up for your newsletter or contact your business.
Don’t forget that humans are inherently selfish. Always think about what you can do for your customer, and not what your customer can do for you.
Creating online forms for your business doesn’t have to be difficult. Watch the demo to get started today.
