I’m kind of a nerd when it comes to HTML forms. I love creating them and coming up with ways to organize them that make it easy to use. But I consistently come across a lot of forms during checkout processes, or signing up for a service, that do things that don’t make much sense to me, and annoy the hell out of me.
One common thing I see is bad usability in dropdown lists of countries. Today I bought tickets to the Rilo Kiley show at the Crystal Ballroom from TicketsWest.com. I didn’t have an account so I had to create one. I filled out my shipping information and when I got to the country selection, I was presented with this:
Why do I have to scroll all the way down to select United States when there’s a 99% chance I’m probably FROM the US and ordering tickets? It’s really frustrating to have to hunt for my country in a huge list.
Solution: Group most likely countries at the top
Chances are someone from the US or Canada are ordering tickets to a concert in the US, not someone from Armenia or Algeria. So put the most common countries at the top of the list, then separate them with a visual indicator. Get rid of ‘Select One’, since it’s a really good bet your customer is in the US (or the country your site is most popular in). Also, be sure to leave the countries in the list as well, in case someone is used to having to scroll and find their country.
Little tweaks like this to forms will not only make your users happy, but it leaves less room for abandoned purchases. The easier you make it for your users to buy, the more likely they will follow through. Every little bit helps.
What do you think? What are other usability issues you see when you fill out forms?
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