Form
What is a form?
A form is the element through which a visitor hands you information: an enquiry, a registration, a checkout. Every extra field costs completions, so a form should ask only for what is needed to answer, validate while the person types rather than after they submit, and confirm plainly that the message arrived.
What makes a form work
- Only the fields you need to answer. Name, a way to reply and the question are enough for most enquiries. Company number, address and budget can wait for the conversation.
- Labels that stay visible. A hint inside the field that disappears when typing starts leaves people guessing what the field was.
- Errors shown while typing, in plain words. “Please enter a phone number with the area code” beats “Invalid input” shown after the button is pressed.
- The right keyboard on a phone: digits for a phone number, the @ key for email, and autofill switched on.
- A clear confirmation: a message that says the form arrived and when to expect an answer, and an email copy.
Example
An installer of solar systems asks for eleven fields in its quote form, including roof area, roof angle, monthly electricity bill and a postcode. Of the visitors who start the form, 18% finish it. Most stop at the roof questions, which many homeowners cannot answer.
The form is cut to four fields: name, phone, town and “What would you like to know?”. The roof questions move to the first phone call. Completion rises to 46%, and enquiries from the same traffic grow from 25 to 61 a month. Sales spend a few more minutes per call and gain more than twice as many calls.
Why it matters for a business
The form is where a visitor becomes an enquiry, so every obstacle in it is paid for twice: once in the advertising that brought the visitor, and again in the customer who left. Each extra field costs completions, and fields that are hard to answer cost the most.
A form also has to be measured. With conversion tracking on the sent form, and a record of where the visitor came from, each channel can be judged by the enquiries it brings. And it has to respect privacy: ask for consent only where it is needed, say what the data is used for, and do not pre-tick boxes. See GDPR.
What to ask
- How many visitors start our form, and how many finish it?
- Which field do people stop at, and do we need it before the first conversation?
- Does the form work with one thumb on a phone, with the right keyboard for each field?
- Does every sent form reach a person who answers, and does the visitor learn when?
The enquiry form is where a visitor becomes a customer, so in our website development we keep it short, clear and tracked.