{"id":493,"date":"2018-03-07T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-07T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coreassistance.com\/tips\/?p=493"},"modified":"2018-02-23T12:36:42","modified_gmt":"2018-02-23T19:36:42","slug":"simplify-your-forms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coreassistance.com\/tips\/2018\/03\/07\/simplify-your-forms\/","title":{"rendered":"Simplify Your Forms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s the thing; <strong>people hate filling out forms<\/strong>.  The simpler you can make your forms, and the easier they are to use, the more people will fill them out.<\/p>\n<p>Think about all the forms you currently have (or plan to create) and ask yourself: <strong>What is the <em>bare minimum<\/em> amount of information you <em>need<\/em> to ask for?<\/strong>  The answer should line up with the fields your form has.<\/p>\n<p>Have a bunch of optional fields?  Get rid of as many as you can (and you can probably get rid of most of them).  <strong>Make each optional field fight tooth and nail for its survival.<\/strong>  Every form field, optional or not, makes your form that much more daunting and intimidating.  If people see a form with ten fields they&#8217;re going to move on long before they realize eight of them are optional.<\/p>\n<p>And if some of those optional fields make the cut, make sure they&#8217;re visually distinct from the required fields.  <strong>It should be crystal clear to your visitors which fields they can skip.<\/strong>  One of the most frustrating experiences on the web is spending the time to fill out a form and hitting submit only to be faced with an error message and a bunch of fields outlined in red.<\/p>\n<p>Take a few minutes to <a href=\"\/tips\/2018\/02\/10\/empathy-is-key-to-great-design\/\">put yourself in your visitor&#8217;s shoes<\/a> and go fill out all of your existing forms from their perspective.  Don&#8217;t use autofill or other fancy tools to fill out your forms; many people don&#8217;t use them or don&#8217;t even know they exist.  <strong>Be honest with yourself: Do you find your forms frustrating?  Do you find yourself getting bored while filling them out?<\/strong>  Did the thought of doing this exercise sound like a drag?  <strong>Imagine how your visitors feel!<\/strong>  If you don\u2019t care to fill out your own forms, why should anyone else?<\/p>\n<p>The simpler and easier you can make your forms the better they&#8217;ll work, for both you and your visitors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The easier and less intimidating your forms are the better they&#8217;ll work for both you and your visitors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ux"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coreassistance.com\/tips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coreassistance.com\/tips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coreassistance.com\/tips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coreassistance.com\/tips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coreassistance.com\/tips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/coreassistance.com\/tips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":651,"href":"https:\/\/coreassistance.com\/tips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493\/revisions\/651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coreassistance.com\/tips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coreassistance.com\/tips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coreassistance.com\/tips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}