So I have a very long form in which the user has to scroll down quite a bit to complete it , so I thinking of having something similar to wikipedias index or maybe divide the form by section and at the end of each section have links to the other serctions lik 1 2 3 4 5, but what are other ways besides these? Could you provide some example?
how to make a long online form easier to fill
Make the form shorter.
No, seriously. There's almost zero good reason to have a long form for a user to fill out, unless you're a doctor asking for medical history. Remove barriers. If the form is needed to play a game or sign up for an account, you're just driving away droves of users. If the form is for feedback, you're just reducing the amount of feedback you'll actually get.
Beyond that, breaking it into several pages (could just be "soft" pages via javascript and CSS, not actual new server requests) can help. Essentially, give the user a virtual "respite" between sections. You might even make it so that the user can fill out only the most critical parts before creating their account or whatever and then letting them in fill in the rest later. Save their work so when they return, the parts they already filled out are still there (as long as it's not sensitive data).
But again, as soon as the user sees that there's more than one page, if they aren't literally required to use your form for something important they need to do, there are good odds (and there's analytics data to show this) that they're going to just say "---- it" and leave your site forever.
No, seriously. There's almost zero good reason to have a long form for a user to fill out, unless you're a doctor asking for medical history. Remove barriers. If the form is needed to play a game or sign up for an account, you're just driving away droves of users. If the form is for feedback, you're just reducing the amount of feedback you'll actually get.
Beyond that, breaking it into several pages (could just be "soft" pages via javascript and CSS, not actual new server requests) can help. Essentially, give the user a virtual "respite" between sections. You might even make it so that the user can fill out only the most critical parts before creating their account or whatever and then letting them in fill in the rest later. Save their work so when they return, the parts they already filled out are still there (as long as it's not sensitive data).
But again, as soon as the user sees that there's more than one page, if they aren't literally required to use your form for something important they need to do, there are good odds (and there's analytics data to show this) that they're going to just say "---- it" and leave your site forever.
Author
No, seriously. There's almost zero good reason to have a long form for a user to fill out, unless you're a doctor asking for medical history.
This form, is one of those government forms in which the user really needs to read a bunch of text about rules and permissions before/while completing it, so yeah I guess breaking it into pages then would be best in this case
I actually worked on some online Hunting and Fishing license software before. You wouldn't believe how complex some of the rules are for buying a hunting license are.
Try to keep all the relevant info on one form, so your users won't have to use the back button.
Your users will still use the back button, so make sure you handle this, and don't double submit their form.
For really long forms, make sure you set the page/session timeout appropriately. Customers will be ticked if they spend 31 minutes filling out a form, submit it, and have to relog in.
You might be able to open up instructional text in another tab, but be sure this is okay. Some government forms require that everything stays on one page.
Oh, and if there's any kind of "mail-in" option for the form that your client does data-entry for, make sure you find out what happens when a "required" mail-in form wasn't filled in properly. In our case we had a public-facing site where customers could fill in their form and almost everything was required. But power users (our client) had a different page where they could leave fields blank as necessary.
- Eck
Break the form into sections and store their answers as they progress through the sections. Nothing's worse than getting three quarters of the way through and then having your browser crash, computer reset, session timeout, etc. You could do it as a single page app and hide all sections other than the current and show a progress bar as they progress through the form. Definitely give the user a way to preserve their progress and return later to complete the form.
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