Texts for forms

What has to be considered while creating the texts for forms to allow for the best user experience possible

Forms are used to automatically retrieve further information in order to pass on the user's request in a pre-qualified manner or to carry out an action.

The functionality of forms is described in detail in another article. This article describes how the texts for forms should ideally be written. 

 

Start of a form

Forms follow the priorly given responses of the chatbot. However, they are not informative anymore, since they aim to retrieve the relevant information, necessarily needed to further work on the users requests. It should be clear that the questioning is targeted and that the original request is finally processed. If further processing is carried out by customer service, such a note could look like this: 

„To solve your requests, further information has to be provided."

Such a note is equally useful in cases, where the request is fully solvable in the chat itself, for example by the usage of a webhook, that retrieves informations in real time and presents it to the user. 

 

Order of query steps

The different questions aiming on retrieving the necessary information should be in a logical order. Which order is the most fitting has to be decided individually. However, it is generally advisable to process the personal data such as first and last name, address and telephone number etc. at the beginning and the content queries afterwards.  It also makes sense to give users an overview of where they are in the form. 
For a few query steps, this can be done, for example, by using colored buttons that are inserted into the text as simple emojis: 

🟢🔴🔴 

Please tell me your first- and surname. 

🟢🟢🔴

Now, tell me your adress. 

🟢🟢🟢

Please tell me, what you want to know. 

 

It makes sense to use specific formulations  to indicate the progress of the form:

• “To start, I need your first and last name.”
• “Almost there! Finally, I need a brief description of your request.”
• “Finally, I need your e-mail address.”

As an alternative to this presentation method, it makes sense to number the individual query steps: 

• 1/11
  “Please tell me your first name and surname.”
• 2/11
  “Please give me your address.” 
• 11/11
  “Finally, please give me your e-mail address.”

 

If the forms contain data, telephone numbers, times or other information that must be entered in a specific format, the format should be displayed in advance.

• “Please tell me the desired arrival and departure date. Please enter this in the following format: DD.MM.YYYY”
• “Please tell me the period within which you would like to depart. Please use the following format [00:00-24:00]”

 

If the form sends the data to customer service for further processing of the request, the final message should specify the following steps. It should be clear that the request has been registered and received and is now being processed. Optionally, a feedback period can be specified in which the user can expect a final response: 

• “Thank you very much! Your request has been received and my colleagues in customer service are processing your request. They will get back to you as soon as possible.” 
• “Thank you very much! Your request has been received. My colleagues in Customer Service will process your request daily from [time] to [time] and get back to you as soon as possible.” 
• “Thank you very much! Your request has been registered. You can expect a response from my colleagues in customer service within the next three working days.”

If users have canceled the form, they should be informed that the request will not be processed. 

• “You have canceled the contact form. Your request cannot be processed. We need all relevant information from you to process your request.”