10 Best Practices for Contact Forms

10 Best Practices for Contact Forms

We see hundreds of web forms every day and often encounter forms that are created so carelessly. Some only have a title or just a user name field. Some don’t even have any text at all. These little tips & tweaks will help you create more professional looking contact forms and also improve your conversion rates.

1. Fool proof your forms:

Always give additional information about your contact forms. Even if it is a simple contact form explain what your visitors can do with it. Contact us can mean everything. Contact for what? For a job application, idea, chat, emergency, issues, and so on.

How?

Always start with a heading and sub-heading on your forms.

Example: (Which one looks better?)

10 Best Practices for Contact Forms Image-1

2. Aid your visitors with extra info:

Help your visitors in every way that you can with tiny bits of information. Point out extra information for fields that can be confusing or to make sure the visitor is on the right path.

How?

1. By placing hint boxes

2. With hover texts

3. By using sub labels

10 Best Practices for Contact Forms Image-2

3. Test forms before publishing 

Preview your form, think like a visitor, and fill in your form to find any flaws.

4. Don’t use captcha

Unless you’re getting many spam responses, it’s a good suggestionnottouse it.

5. Don’t use a form in a pop-up window

It may be tempting to put the form right in the center of the screen to get responses quickly, but it can get annoying.   People may fill out “I hate pop-ups” on your form…  There goes a wasted submission!

6. Don’t use “required” for every field

Give your visitors some flexibility. They’ll thank you by filling out the form correctly.

7. Keep it simple

Simplicity is the key to success for almost anything. Don’t fill your forms with out of context questions.

8. Have 1 open-ended question

Leave 1 open question for the thoughts, comments, ideas of your visitors. Some may want to give additional and valuable information so don’t miss them out.

9. Be consistent on the grammar

Labels should follow title case. First word of the label should start upper case and the sub-label should follow with the same pattern.

10. Don’t think about phishing

Keep in mind that phishing is bad!  Stealing passwords, credit card numbers, etc. is illegal and can cause you a lot of trouble. Use your forms for good.

That’s about it for our best practices. Which methods do you use? Please share them on the comments section below.

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