Have you ever come across an online form that was frustrating to fill out? Did you end up completing it or just give up after a while?

The fact of the matter is that many people will just give up if they feel frustrated or find it difficult to fill out an online form. That is why you should try to avoid many of the common mistakes that can lead to that happening:

  • Using placeholders as a replacement for labels

Placeholder text (i.e. the text inside input fields) is best used to provide hints, and should never be used as a replacement for the field label. The reason for that is simple: Once a field is selected the placeholder text will disappear, and if the respondent doesn’t remember what it was they won’t have any reference they can use to find out.

  • Not knowing when to use lists or radio buttons

Lists are useful when you need to select a single answer from multiple options, but they also require more clicks to select an answer – which isn’t ideal. On the other hand radio buttons require fewer clicks (just one, really), but if there are too many options they can look messy.

Ideally you should use radio buttons when there are just a few options (i.e. 2 to 4), and lists for anything more than that.

  • Unhelpful error messages

Having an error message that just says ‘Error’ or something equally unhelpful is not useful at all, and it will force respondents to try to figure out what went wrong. Many won’t bother to do that, and will just not fill out the form instead.

Try to make sure that all the error messages in your form are helpful and clearly identify the problem as well as suggest a way to fix it.

  • Designing a form with multiple columns

Studies have shown that single-column forms can be completed faster, as they are easier for respondents to scan and answer. Unfortunately many people still tend to create forms with multiple columns to try to ‘fit in’ more of the form into a smaller area.

The fact of the matter is that while that may have been a concern with printed forms, online forms don’t suffer from a limitation on space. As such you should always try to design forms with a single-column layout instead of multiple columns.

If you avoid the mistakes described above, your form will be much more effective. That being said you will need to be able to customize your form and its structure or design to avoid many of them, and for example you could use AidaForm if you need an online form creator to help with that.

All said and done the fewer mistakes that you make when creating your form, the better off it will be. Seeing as it is difficult enough getting people to complete forms in general, you really can’t afford to be losing respondents due to mistakes that frustrate them.