When you are building your email list with contact forms on whichever one of the email marketing services you are using, your goal is to get conversions. You want people to put their information into your box. Sadly, many contact forms are not designs to make people want to click them. Sure, they may be functional, but besides for function, we need them to get results. In this article, we are going to talk about how to design contact forms your users will actually click.
Only Ask for Information You Need
Have you seen senselessly long contact forms. They ask for your name, physical address, email address, favorite pet, color and anything else they can think of. How many people do you think actually fill out that form? You’d probably guess than it is less than they would like to see.
You have probably noticed social logins and how popular they have become. The less people have to do, the more likely they are to do it. This is why sites are now allowing you to login with Facebook or Twitter instead of entering your information to sign up for an account. If you want another example of how people want ease of use, look at the 1 click ordering with Amazon. Not 2 clicks. 1 click.
While you don’t have to get your contact form down to 1 click, the less information that you need from them to perform your desired action, the better. You can always get further information from them in the future after they have purchased your product and subscribed to your list.
Single Column Designs
The less confusing your form is, the better. When you keep your design to a single column, there isn’t much that your user can misunderstand. All they have to do is keep looking down on the form until they are done. If you’ve done your job well from the last point, they won’t have to be looking down for a long because there are plenty a few fields.
With a single design column, users will be able to put their information in quickly and without confusion which means that you are going to have less people dropping off your contact form when they start to fill it out.
Simplifying & Organizing Your Labels
You have to have your labels. Without your labels, no one is going to know where to input the information and which information to input where. You have probably noticed quite a few different ways people have set up their labels. There are some best practices to remember to cut down on confusion and make the user experience easier.
Never put your labels inside the input field. If you’ve seen form that put the labels inside the fields, you’ve probably forgot to fill out information in these more than once because you thought it was already filled out since there was text in it. Even if the text goes away when you click on the field to make it active, it can cause errors and make people forget a field.
Even when you don’t have a lot of vertical space, you need to have the label to the left of the form’s input field. If you simply don’t have any room there, put it above the field but still to the left where it can be read easily.
Group Relevant Content
If you need to have a contact form with more fields, it is helpful to group relevant content. You can do this by the colors and other visual elements that you have on the form. When you place the elements closely together, the human eye will group them and see them as related which makes it feel like there is less to fill out than there really is. Most of all, it will look well put together and organized. It terms of design, you can use a thin horizontal line or a background color to show the elements are together.
Show What Is Important
When you are designing your form, there are certain actions that you want your user to take. Actions like “Buy now”, “Submit”, and “Next” as well as actions you might not want your user to have to take like “cancel”, and “back”.
The actions that you want your users to take should stand out more by using bold text, a bright background or other visual effect that will draw attention from the user. The action that you do not want someone to take should be in a small font not drawing attention away from the actions that you want taken. Not only does this keep from confusing the user, but it also means that the user is likely to pay more attention to the prominent field and take the action that you want.
Conclusion
There are many ways that you can optimize your contact forms so people want to use them. There is no reason to keep the boring, plain forms that are often standard with email providers or contact plugins. You can customize and optimize your forms so that your users know that you had a part to play in it. After all, they did come to your site because it spoke to them in some way. Use your contact form to continue the branding experience and build familiarity with your users.
Was this article helpful and informative? Leave us a comment with your thoughts in the section below.