Checkout optimisation – Chapter 5

Form Optimisation

Online forms give the user a lot of ‘work’ to do.

Checkout pages tend to be form-heavy. In the industry, we describe form pages as ‘high friction’ pages.

The goods news is there are established best practices. You just need to conform to them. 

The framework for form optimisation is: “keep, cut, postpone or explain”.

Keep

Rule 1

Keep

What data can you absolutely not live without? Create a shortlist.

Postpone

Rule 3

Postpone

Can you ask for this information later in the user journey?

(When the user is more invested in the process)

Cut

Rule 2

Cut

Be ruthless. What’s superfluous? Get rid of it.

Explain

Rule 4

Explain

Provide clarity about why you need certain information (e.g. phone number), or what exactly you’re requesting (e.g. CVV number).