Form Design Best Practices

Web Forms are a powerful tool that can be used to gather visitor information on Sugar Market landing pages or external pages hosted on the internet.  Commonly, forms are used for event registrations, requests for more information, and as a gateway to access useful content for the buyer.  Whether you are new to form building or you are looking for fresh ideas, we are offering some tips & tricks to help you follow best practices.

Types of Forms

Sugar Market’s form builder can be used to build all different types of forms to collect lead information.  The most common types of forms we see people use are:

• Contact Us
  • Great way to gather information on your leads & contacts, whether it’s new or replacing existing data
  • Perfect for routing requests to the correct department using the builder’s conditions & actions
  • Allows you to respond to enquiries more efficiently by sending alerts to users
• Demo Request
  • Helps qualify your leads for sales
  • Use lead routing rules to assign new leads to the proper owner (can be based on geographic location, product that they are interested in, or any other question you pose on the form)
• Newsletter Sign Up
  • Grow your subscriber list organically
  • Allow your new leads to opt-in to communications
• Asset Download
  • Gain new leads by gating quality content, such as white papers
  • Position yourself as a thought leader in your industry
• Survey
  • Gain new insights from your current customers
  • Collect additional information

Don’t Forget About Privacy

One of the most common reasons why people don’t fill out forms is because of the anxiety that surrounds providing personal details about themselves, even if it’s just their email address or the state they live in.  In addition, the more information you are asking people to provide may also deter them from filling out your form.  We would recommend only asking the important questions or making the less important questions optional. 

Whenever collecting information, provide a brief description of how you will use the information and a link to your privacy policy.  These requirements may vary based on where they are and where you are.  If marketing to the European Union, you’ll want to ensure GDPR compliance.  This includes explicit opt-in consent, no pre-checked boxes (consent will require a clear, affirmative action), keeping consent requests separate from other terms & conditions, make it easy for people to withdraw consent and provide instructions on how to do so, and keep evidence of consent (who?, when?, how?).  Even if you don’t live in the EU or market to the EU, you can still follow these guidelines to put people at ease when asking to provide their personal information.

Styling Best Practices

How Should I Structure My Form?

It’s important to put thoughtful consideration into your form design.  The first item to consider revolves around your form’s structure.  It’s best practice to structure your form in a clear and concise way.  Here are some tips to consider when building the structure of your form:

• Remove all non-essential fields
  • The more required information, the fewer form completions you are likely to receive
• Top-Left align your field labels and group the labels with their input using your margin settings
  • Google AI found that putting field labels above the input field improved the way users scanned the form
• Create a one-column layout
  • Single column layouts have been shown to perform better than multiple columns placed side-by-side
• Group similar fields together into sections or steps
  • For example, separation between contact information & account information
  • Section labels (ie. Text Boxes) can be helpful in this process
• Order fields from easiest to hardest to complete
  • By the time they get to the harder questions, they have already invested time in filling out the form and are more likely to complete

Which Type of Question Should I Use?

Determining which field types to use when laying out your questions is often the most difficult part of form building for marketers.  There is an abundance of field types offered in Sugar Market’s form builder which can be overwhelming if you are building a form from scratch.  Here are some tips to consider when choosing your field types:

• Choose field types that reduce clicks-to-complete
  • The fewer number of clicks needed, the more likely someone will complete the form
• Choose the correct field type for the desired selection
  • Radio Buttons – One selection from a range of options
  • Checkboxes – One or more selections from a range of options
  • Both of these options are preferred over a dropdown & should be aligned vertically
• Avoid using Placeholder Text as your field labels
  • This is often done to conserve space, but can lead to usability issues
  • Makes data validation difficult & makes completion difficult for those with visual or cognitive impairment
• Rather than marking required fields, label those that are optional
  • Users will know which questions they can skip

What Do I Want Users to Do?

Your call to action is very important, and what you say on that button could make a really big difference in how many people actually fill out your form.  The presentation and message of your button helps define the action that will take place when the user submits your form.  This gives you the opportunity to let the user know what to expect from your team once they have given you their information.  Here are some tips to consider when setting up your call to action button:

• Finishing the sentence “I want to…” can help define your call to action
  • Puts you in the user’s position
• Use first person – ‘Request a Trial’ vs. ‘Request my Trial’
  • Unbounce found that this subtle change led to 90% more clicks
• Contrast your call to action to the surrounding content
  • Use a bright color that contrasts with the colors around it
  • On a page with primarily cool tones, add an orange button
• Make your call to action the same width as your fields
  • Helps with visual continuity for more streamlined design
• Explain what happens once someone submits their information
  • Removes anxiety about providing their information & sets expectations for follow up

Summary

Web forms are one of the best ways to gather new or updated information from leads & customers organically.  We are always learning new ways to create new and update existing forms that promote engagement, rather than deter someone due to the forms complexity or lack of transparency.  The main items you should take away from this article are:

• Provide explicit detail of what you plan to do with the information you are collecting
• Create a streamlined design
• Choose the best field type for your questions
• Add a powerful call to action button

To learn more about Sugar Market’s Form Builder, enroll in SugarU’s eLearning course titled ‘Form Builder Overview – Sugar Market’.