Three Improvements for Registration Forms

Marketing your association’s products, services, and events only to have users get to registration pages and turn away is a wasted opportunity. Creating a better experience for your members and prospects when they come to your site requires innovation  (opens in a new tab) and a firm grasp of software.

Technology has evolved and modern users will approach your registration page with specific ideas of how the process should go. This means optimizing your association’s registration page and user experience (UX) to meet modern standards can be the difference between a paid registration and an abandoned form.

To enhance UX for your website  (opens in a new tab) and online registration forms, start with these three guiding principles: keep your form to a single page, create an accessible design, and run regular maintenance.

And if you’re ever in doubt about changing up or optimizing your registration form, consider whether or not it makes your user’s experience easier. Understood? Let’s jump in.

Keep Forms to a Single Page

The more you know about your members, the better an experience you can create for them  (opens in a new tab). This can make it tempting to collect as much information as possible on your registration form. However, long registration forms can lead to form abandonment.

Practice filling out and submitting your registration form on both mobile and desktop to ensure that all fields work, confirmation emails are being sent out, and information flows to the right places in your database.

Don’t let your registration form add an additional complication to your website user’s journey  (opens in a new tab): Only ask necessary questions and format your form to make the most of your allotted space without requiring scrolling.

For example, Regpack has an online form builder  (opens in a new tab) that personalizes the registration process with conditional logic tools. This adapts the registration form in real-time based on the user’s answers to previous questions.

Create Accessible Forms

A welcoming website  (opens in a new tab) is also an accessible one. To create a better UX for everyone completing a form, it’s important that your association adopt accessible design practices and adhere to web accessibility guidelines  (opens in a new tab) as required. Since digital accessibility is complex and encompasses a variety of human, technical, and legal compliance elements, a good first step is to consult with an expert who can help your organization achieve digital accessibility.

Run Regular Maintenance

Your registration forms should not be difficult to find  (opens in a new tab), confusing to complete, or full of broken media and links. To prevent this, forms, as well as your overall website, must undergo routine maintenance. If left unattended for too long, the data collected by your registration forms can become insecure and a poorly maintained database can quickly become unusable.

Without regular site and data maintenance, users will also experience longer loading times, broken images, or failed registrations. As part of this maintenance, also practice filling out and submitting your registration form on both mobile and desktop to ensure that all fields work, confirmation emails are being sent out, and information flows to the right places in your database.

Even after your forms are optimized for UX, whether by yourself or an expert, it’ll require regular upkeep for the forms to remain reliable and push registration to completion.