A guide to learn how to identify if a user is experiencing form fatigue.

A Guide For Preventing Form Fatigue To Increase Conversions & Improve UX

Learn how to identify behavior patterns that indicate your users are suffering from form fatigue and discover actionable strategies to improve form fatigue and increase conversions.

While terms like scroll fatigue or decision fatigue are commonplace in UX, a quick search for resources on form fatigue doesn’t surface much. But, with over 15 years of experience optimizing digital experiences, we know how prevalent it can be.

Drawing from those years of experience improving SaaS platforms, we’ve identified and addressed form fatigue across various products. In this article, we’ll show you how to uncover and fix it effectively.

Keep reading to learn:

  • Research methods for uncovering form fatigue
  • User behavior patterns that indicate your users suffer from form fatigue
  • Actionable strategies to improve form fatigue and increase conversions

What is form fatigue?

Form fatigue occurs when a user gets frustrated and/or exhausted by the complexity or length of a digital form. The poor design of the form directly contributes to this sense of fatigue and causes them to abandon.

Psychologically, users are conditioned to prefer experiences that require minimal cognitive effort. We want experiences that accomplish our goals simply and quickly. When a user experience does not meet those instincts, conversion rates drop.

Form fatigue is typically caused by things like:

  • Content fatigue: When excessive textual/visual content on a page overwhelms users, hindering their ability to find relevant content for successful task completion.
  • Heavy cognitive load: When undue mental effort is required to accomplish a task, causing analysis paralysis or frustration, leading to abandonment.
  • High interaction cost: When a task or interaction requires significant time and/or effort to accomplish, possibly creating frustration and resulting in abandonment.

How to identify form fatigue

When working on a product day in and day out, you might be too close to the forms to know if fatigue is happening. That is where research can help.

Getting an external, real user perspective can expose things like content fatigue, heavy cognitive load, or high interaction cost in your forms.

So, the best way to identify form fatigue is through user research. While there are plenty of methods, the best for this particular scenario include:

  • Session recordings
  • Heatmaps
  • Scroll maps
  • Click maps
  • User tests

With your raw data in hand, look out for some specific patterns that might indicate form fatigue:

  • Scanning: A user scrolls over content (text or images) at a higher scroll rate on mobile, while on desktop they might hover over some words or phrases, or completely skip over content altogether.
  • Halted Scrolling: The user pauses on the site to possibly engage with content/reorient themselves or this pause may indicate that the user perceives a false bottom.
  • U-turns: When a user back navigates to the previous page they were just on, using either breadcrumbs or the back button.

These research patterns can point to moments when users are experiencing form fatigue and the digital experience can be optimized.

Enjoying this article?

Subscribe to our newsletter, Good Question, to get insights like this sent straight to your inbox every week.

7 ways to prevent form fatigue

If you suspect form fatigue or uncover evidence of it in your research, don’t fret. There is plenty you can do to fix it. For companies building new forms, these tips can also be used to prevent form fatigue in the first place.

1. Execute the 10 principles of good form design

    The first, and arguably the most important, way to limit form fatigue is to understand and act on the principles of good form design. Website forms are one of your most important onsite elements. They are the crux of a user’s path to conversion.

    Bad form design can cause users to drop off during critical conversion opportunities, leaving them frustrated or confused, while great form design creates a seamless user experience that can increase conversion rates and leave users feeling excited about a product or company.

    These are the ten established form design principles to help you create better experiences:

    1. Priming: Prepare users by setting clear expectations about the form’s purpose, length, and benefits before they begin.
    2. Error Prevention: Design forms to minimize user mistakes by using constraints, clear labels, and smart defaults.
    3. Error Recovery: Make it easy for users to identify, understand, and fix errors with real-time validation and clear messaging.
    4. Feedback: Provide immediate, actionable responses to user inputs to build confidence and guide progression.
    5. Proximity: Group related fields together logically to make forms easier to navigate and process mentally.
    6. Convention: Follow familiar design patterns to ensure users can complete the form intuitively without unnecessary friction.
    7. Momentum: Encourage users to keep going by visually or textually reinforcing their progress through the form.
    8. Proof: Build trust and reduce hesitation with evidence like security assurances, testimonials, or recognizable logos.
    9. Demonstrated Value: Highlight the benefits of completing the form so users feel their effort is worthwhile.
    10. Perceived Effort Level: Design forms to appear simple and manageable by minimizing visible fields and breaking longer forms into steps.

    To learn more, we explore these principles and include 32 good form design examples in this companion article.

    2. Ask for minimal information upfront

    In research and testing for clients, we have found that asking for less information upfront may help to prevent form fatigue and in turn, increase initial registrations. The highest converting forms ask for only the necessary information in order to register, saving additional information for post-registration. That could be as little as just the email or include name and other essential information.

    Once the user is registered, they can be guided through additional steps to help personalize the account to their needs, for example, more personal information, settings, shipping preferences, choosing a plan, adding orders, etc.

    3. Reduce form length perception

    For forms that can’t reduce the information required, research shows users’ perception of form length can be as important as the actual length.

    You can reduce perceived effort with strategies like:

    • Chunking forms into steps: Break longer forms into smaller, manageable sections and use clear step titles (e.g., “Step 1: Account Details”).
    • Collapsible sections: Use collapsible form fields to make the interface less overwhelming while still providing access to all necessary fields.
    • Auto-advance fields: Automatically move users to the next field when input is complete (e.g., credit card information split into boxes).

    4. Make clear suggestions

    Simplify decision-making by limiting options and highlighting recommended choices. You can use autofill and predictive text to reduce manual input and create an intuitive, logical flow that guides users naturally through the form.

    5. Optimize for mobile or desktop

    At this point, we shouldn’t even have to say it, but you’d be surprised how often teams forget to tailor the experience for the correct device. Form fatigue is exasperated when the design doesn’t function on the user interface being navigated. The design should adapt for mobile or desktop users, regardless of whether you are an app-first or desktop-first product.

    One essential way to do this is by adjusting keyboard inputs. For example, when a field is asking for a zip code or phone number, default to the numeric keyboard on mobile to make it as simple as possible to fill out the form.

    6. Use gamification to entertain

    Gamifying the form-filling experience can motivate users to complete it. So, when you have an extensive form that needs filling and can’t be simplified, add elements like milestones, progress rewards, and personal messages to keep users entertained and motivated. Celebrate small wins when users complete sections and consider unlocking discounts, offers, or badges as users complete each step. It’s hard to be fatigued when you’re having fun.

    7. Leverage post-signup emails

    Preventing form fatigue can also happen by supplementing information in other ways. Use post-signup emails to collect information that isn’t imperative to registration. For example, a user’s birthday could come in handy for rewards later on, but it is better to collect it post-signup to prevent form fatigue.

    Additionally, the email body can link the user to connect new apps to their account, access more discounts, watch tutorials, download resources, or contact their team.

    Many SaaS companies also send emails from a real person to encourage users to respond if they have questions or need help. These personal follow-ups can also help recapture users who abandon the form initially.

    To prevent form fatigue in UX design, focus on strategies that simplify and streamline the user’s form-filling experience. Remember, the goal is to make form completion feel easy and painless for the user.

    Ready to eliminate form fatigue and boost conversions?

    Form fatigue can quietly undermine your UX efforts, leading to missed conversions and frustrated users. However, with thoughtful research, clear design principles, and actionable strategies, you can create forms that not only engage users but also encourage them to complete the journey.

    At The Good, we specialize in helping businesses like yours eliminate friction and create digital experiences that drive results. See this form improvement example from our work with Helium 10.

    If you’re ready to optimize your forms and increase conversions, reach out to our team today. Let’s work together to turn your users into loyal customers.

    Find out what stands between your company and digital excellence with a custom 5-Factors Scorecard™.
    maggie paveza

    About the Author

    Maggie Paveza

    Maggie Paveza is a Strategist at The Good. She has years of experience in UX research and Human-Computer Interaction, and acts as an expert on the team in the area of user research.