This one should be pretty obvious, but you still see a lot of forms out there with them. Offering your users an easy option to clear fields that they’ve already completed just doesn’t make a lot of sense when you’re trying to get people to complete the form fields. Stop making it easy for users to change their minds about whether or not to provide their information! Yes, there may be a case or two out there where someone might argue that providing this option helped them improve the quality of their leads or the accuracy of their database information because they were auto populating the fields, but in most cases it’s just plain not going to get you more lead conversions.
Automatically populate form fields you’ve already collected
If you’re working on building a subscriber database, configure your lead forms to auto populate fields for which you already have the user’s information on file. Or, better yet, hide these fields altogether. Don’t make your users fill out their information again unnecessarily. Instead, ask only for enough information to accurately identify them with the database. By doing so you can greatly reduce the length of your form and in turn reduce friction and encourage engagement.
Left align your form fields
One of the most important things to consider when designing forms is it’s scanability. Before making the decision to even begin filling out a form, most users will quickly scan the form, taking a quick mental inventory of what will be required of them. If the user feels that the form is too long or too complicated to be worth their time and effort, they may likely decide not to complete it. When choosing how to align your form’s input fields and their labels, there are a number of variations you can use, but left alignments in general tend to aid scanability slightly more than others. Left alignments create a natural flow of information from top to bottom and ease scanability. Avoid right aligning field labels against their input fields, creating a ragged left edge and making more work for the eyes. Instead, try your labels left aligned, next to their input fields. Try also testing a version where the labels are left aligned above their input fields.
Align what you’re requesting of the user with the benefit being offered
Whether you’re utilizing some kind of link bait to drive email signups or campaigning for large scale initiatives, always make sure that what you’re requesting of the user aligns with the benefit being offered. As an extreme example, requiring users’ Social Security numbers might be completely acceptable for a college application. The benefit of obtaining a college degree outweighs any risk of providing personally identifiable information. On the other hand, if you were to require Social Security numbers in return for a flimsy pdf download, then you’d likely have a lot of trouble obtaining leads! But, it may not always be this obvious. Even more common fields, such as a phone number or street address, could have the potential to negatively effect your form completion rates, depending on the benefit being offered. Take a look not only at your form fields, but at any hoops your users are being required to jump through in order to get to what they’re looking for.