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 1Keep
What data can you absolutely not live without? Create a shortlist.
Postpone
Rule 3Postpone
Can you ask for this information later in the user journey?
(When the user is more invested in the process)
Cut
Rule 2Cut
Be ruthless. What’s superfluous? Get rid of it.
Explain
Rule 4Explain
Provide clarity about why you need certain information (e.g. phone number), or what exactly you’re requesting (e.g. CVV number).