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Your Church Website's Online Forms: Why Shorter is Better

I read a lot of blogs and books on how to create great websites, but few have been so immediately impactful to me as Steve Krug's usability tome, Don't Make Me Think. It is often regarded as THE book on making websites easy for users to find what they want. Below is a nugget of truth from this book.

Your website is almost exclusively a one-way conversation, from you to your website's visitors. Online forms are one way of breaking that pattern and allow you to learn more about who your users are and what they care about--Contact Us forms, newsletter sign-ups, event registrations, donation forms.

The natural reaction to gaining the small insights forms provide is the desire to maximize the information you gain from site visitors, even asking for more information than you need. The result could be asking for too much, alienating the user, and coming up empty-handed.

Three downsides to asking for more than you need

Here's what Don't Make Me Think stated as the three biggest reasons not to ask for more information than you need on your church website's forms.

1. It tends to keep you from getting real data.

"As soon as people realize you're asking for more than you need, they feel completely justified in lying to you. I often tell my clients that e-mail addresses are like heroin to marketing people, so addictive that it doesn't strike them as odd that 10% of their subscribers happen to be named 'Barney Rubble.'" - Krug

2. You get fewer completed forms.

"The formula is simple: the less data you ask for, the more submissions you'll get. People tend to be in an enormous hurry on the web, and if the form looks even a little bit longer than they expect, many just won't bother." - Krug

3. It makes you look bad.

"People who really want your newsletter may just through hoops to get it, but make no mistake, it will diminish their impression of you while they're doing it. On the other hand, if you only ask for the info you need, you've established a relationship with them you can get more data later in subsequent exchanges." - Krug

Three guidelines for your online forms

From a user's point-of-view ...

1. Only make me provide what you need to complete this transaction.

You only need my name and e-mail address to send me a newsletter. So only ask for that.

2. Don't ask for a lot of optional information.

The sight of a lot of empty fields can be overwhelming. The less you ask me to fill in, the more I actually will.

3. Show me the value of giving you my info.

Tell me exactly what I'll get by registering. Show me a sample newsletter. Answer your Contact Us inquiries quickly. Explain where your user's donations are going.