A website, apart from the content and pictures, also includes some web forms. These web forms are necessary to identify and validate the user. Without these web forms, the spamming issues were high in numbers.
Some of the websites do not allow the user to view detailed information of their services and products unless they register themselves using a web form or a registration form. It improves the security of both the website and the user.
In the below paragraphs, we will briefly discuss some types of web forms and how to maintain and improve these web forms.
Most common types of web forms and their use
A website includes multiple web forms, and each type of online form has its objectives and reasons. Almost every online form consists of a username, password and email. These forms vary in the design, the number of input fields, and the input fields.
Below are some very common web forms you will get to see on almost every website.
1. Login/ Sign up Forms
These are the most important web forms. You will get to see these types of online forms on every website. Every ecommerce website necessarily contains these forms to make a user profile to log in to their accounts any time and complete transactions. It is very important to upgrade and update these forms with the latest design forms.
2. Contact Forms
Contact forms on a website enable a web user to contact the people dealing with the website or the people who run the website. These contact forms allow the website user to share their concerns or ask for more detailed information about a product or service they are about to purchase. These forms are necessary on your website so that web users can contact you and get instant replies.
3. Modal Forms
These are the type of web forms on a web page that, for a moment, disable the webpage until the user fills the form. The visibility of the webpage is available, but the user cannot interact with the page. The user must have to fill in the form to perform any action on the existing web page. The modal form may ask about the username, email and password.
4. Payment Forms
Ecommerce websites mostly include these forms. The user must have to fill in these forms before making payment against the goods they are purchasing online. For the user convenience, these forms must ask about the payment method and ask for the delivery details such as the address, phone number etc.
5. Online Order Forms
The people purchasing online need to fill an order form that will include the product detail, the number of products, the size details, the shipping address, contact number, country, city details, etc. Some of the input fields must be pre-filled for the user’s ease, like using AI technologies to identify the user’s location.
6. Registration Forms
These forms are most common on event management, educational websites or the web portals of a university or college. Students can register themselves using the university email to create an account, upload their work on the portals, submit assignments to the professor, and download slides and lectures uploaded by the professor. Another role of the registration form is for registering for a university to get admission or enrollment.
How to make our web forms look better and easy to fill?
Your web forms must look better and are easy to fill in by the website users. The webform designs and look keep changing, and it is a must to maintain and update your website. The question that arises here is that who will and how to maintain a website? The answer to this question is below. We will discuss how to improve the website experience and webforms.
1. Make them simple and easy
Do not create long and complex web forms. It will confuse the user and make the user switch to another website with fewer input fields and requirements. Too complex online forms result in a bad user experience. Keep them simple and ask for necessary information only.
2. Add more dropdown and selection boxes
It is very important to save the user time that you include more dropdown menus and selection or checkboxes. For example, provide a dropdown menu for gender selection instead of making the user type the gender.
3. Error alerts
Your web form must tell and alert the user if they insert the wrong or no information at all in the input fields. For example, the user may not fill in a piece of information by mistake, so; the forms must display an error or incomplete form alert.
4. Font size and color
One way to update and maintain your website is the good use of font sizes and colors. Using old font sizes or sizes that are out of fashion will lead to a bad user experience. Maintain your website with time and the requirements. Hire an experienced website maintenance company to upgrade or update your website design, look and activities.
5. Tooltips
Tooltips are like a helping hand for the user filling in the form. When the user hovers or moves the cursor over an input field, it must provide some necessary information about the input field. It must suggest to the user what type of information they need to fill in or insert the data into the input field.
An example of good and bad web forms
The pictures below compare a good web with a bad web form. Figure 1 is an example of a good web form as it is a combination of radio boxes, checkboxes, dropdown menu and marks a “*” sign on the input fields that are important to fill out. Whereas figure 2 does not contain any dropdown menus, checkboxes etc.
The first web form tells the user what he has to do with the input fields, and the second webform lacks the input field labels.
Keep your website updated for improved results
For the improved results of websites and webpages, it is a must that they are updated. The content, design, and forms within the website all need to be up to date. If your website is not updated over time, you will fail to optimize and rank your site, so it is important to maintain your website.
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