WPForms form abandonment: find the field

Abandonment is the gap between starting a form and submitting it, and one total hides where that gap opens. A WordPress form built with WPForms often runs long, with required fields, several pages, and questions that only appear after an answer. A required question the visitor cannot answer ends the form for them. A file upload is worse: it depends on the visitor's device, a size limit and a steady connection, and it can fail with no clear message on a phone. The message for a skipped field can also sit above the top of the form, out of view when the visitor presses Submit.

• Open each page of the form and note the first required field the visitor cannot skip.
• Check whether a question shown after an answer is required, and whether Next can be reached without it.
• Test the upload field on a phone with a camera photo, and read the size limit shown in the field.
• Press Submit with the form empty and see whether the first error message appears where a phone visitor can read it.
• Try any CAPTCHA the form shows on a phone in a private window before you rely on it.

A visitor arrives on the page that holds the form, reads the heading, and clicks into the first box. That first touch counts as a start. Then they move down the form. A progress bar, if the form has one, shows how much is left. A visitor who sees four or five pages before the end may decide the form is not worth it. The page with the most leaving is often not the one with the hardest question. It is the page where a visitor first meets a question they do not want to answer, or where the Next button sits below the fold on a phone and they have to scroll to find it.

Pages break for two different reasons. Some pages hold a plain question the visitor could answer but would rather not, such as a phone number or an exact date. Others hold a condition: a question appears only after a certain answer, and it is required. A visitor who gave an answer they did not expect may have nothing to put in the new question and no way to skip it. Such a visitor looks like they quit at the question before. Their real exit is the answer that opened the new one.

A file upload field asks the visitor to pick a file from their device, and it works only if the file is inside the limit and the connection holds until the upload finishes. On a phone a photo can be large and stall with no clear error. The visitor sees a spinner or nothing at all, waits, and leaves. Errors are the other silent exit. When Submit fails validation, the message can appear above the form, on a part of the page the visitor has already scrolled past, or as a red line under a field that sits below the fold. To the visitor, the button simply did nothing.

Check this with two presses of Submit on an empty form, once on a laptop and once on a phone, and note where the first error shows. If the message is off screen on the phone, the visitor has no reason to give. Then pick a file near the upload limit with the phone camera, and note whether the visitor is told what went wrong. A useful message names the field and the limit, and it appears where the visitor is already looking.

Use the step where the visitor stopped to choose the check. A stop at the first field points at the form's length or where it sits on the page, not at one question. A stop at a named question points at that question: its required setting, its wording, or a conditional question that hid the field after an earlier answer. A stop on the last page, just before Submit, points at the button area, a CAPTCHA or a consent box. A stop right after Submit points at a validation error the visitor could not see. Your form analytics show the size of the gap, and the run shows the field inside it.

A new condition, a field made required, or a phone number moved onto the first page can bring the drop-off back at a question that used to work. After each edit, run the same form on a phone in a private window, through to the last page, and note where each visitor stops. The second run shows whether the drop-off moved.