Forms: gradual engagement?

Hi all,

Who here writes forms? Who’s had the opportunity to see the results of those forms?

I’ve been reading about “gradual engagement” for forms in articles by Luke Wroblewski such as this one and [url=http://visitmix.com/Articles/Web-Forms-for-People]this one and was wondering how this would work for something like insurance forms, where there’s really no getting around needing a certain amount of required information to give something meaningful back to the user.

I notice as I try to use our competitor’s forms for getting a quick quote that they string me along, asking a few questions, then after I hit the submit button I get just more questions… this is usually 2 or 3 times before I either finally get a quote, or worse, get told they’ll email it to me. Arg. Personally I find this frustrating as hell, but I wonder if Most Normal People actually like this. Of course, without any money of my own for user testing (and I get paid rock-bottom wages, I’m pretty much NOT going to spend my own money to test) and my employer strangely not interested in user testing, I’m wondering if anyone who does know their users has any useful information.

Our forms, by contrast, do ask the least number of questions necessary by our back-end software which calculates premiums, but we ask them all at once. There are two forms: the simpler “get a quote” form (which asks for a postal code, birthdate, basic vehicle info and what kind of coverage they want), and a “direct purchase” form where it asks everything necessary to just insure them entirely. Users can either start with the quote form, and if they like what they see (they see the proposed premium right away), they can click to the next form where everything they’ve already filled in remains filled in… only then do we start bugging them for personal info and email addresses… or they can just go directly to that form by clicking a link.

I think we’re doing it right for two kinds of vehicles (cars and motorcycles) where on the main page there’s just one question: fill in your license plate number and hit enter to begin, OR hit the button that says “no license number”. If they know the license number, their quote form gets a lot of the vehicle information already filled in for them. We can’t do that for scooters though, but it does seem more inviting and simple to start with just one broad question, and a seemingly important one.

Both forms show all questions at once. The quote form has either 10 or 12 questions (depending on the kind of coverage you choose) and a submit button.

Since everyone else does the stringing-along thing (though I notice they all ask way more questions and they don’t always give me the payoff), are they doing this because it’s what they do, or is this perhaps based on some user research floating around out there? Reading about the “gradual engagement” is making me wonder if we should also string people along… or should it be called “tempting them into filling it in”? With one exception, the questions don’t change as you go; the server doesn’t have to present new questions based on current answers.

Or, conversely, I wonder if it would be beneficial to actually state above the form something like “all you need to do is fill in the 12 questions below and you will immediately see your premium!” or something. Would people even read it? Does it convince people to go ahead and start filling it out? Or is looking at a list of form questions, no matter how sexily styled (lawlz boring insurance forms) always form a big turn-off in the Westerner’s eye?

Currently there’s also some text stating how “easy and simple” and “fast” it is to get a quote. I wonder if this is counter productive. If I’m promising something’s easy and the user comes across a confusing question, did I just make them more frustrated??

Any feedback is appreciated.

Personally I think, I’d prefer to fill in one your forms than having to give my eye colour the name of my pet Gremlin or my girlfriend’s height. Or whether I believe in Santa just to be told that I need to have my e-mail ready (and click continue to page two) so I can be placed on a mailing-list or worse, just to get a generic “quote”.

I haven’t asked to buy a product; I’ve asked for a quote thus am not a customer as of yet. I’d be tempted to leave… Personally, I believe it’s just probably laziness/ignorance by the web designer telling you to jump through several hoops (pages) with a multi-page form that requires unnecessary information even if it does dynamically alter.

This is vehicle insurance. The amount you get quoted depends on
-your age (older people pay less, people between 16-18 are a special group)
-your start date of the policy (mostly so 15-year-olds can choose to wait til they are 16, 24-year-olds can get the 25-year-old discount, etc)
-your postal code (where you live does not affect basic coverage but strongly affects full-coverage price (theft, damage))
-the vehicle (is it fancy? or a honda civic?)
-what kind of insurance you want (basic coverage, full? Full needs original cost of vehicle and any accessories you want insured with it)
-do you want passenger insurance? costs a bit more
-do you want statement insurance (i dunno how to translate this one but it’s extra legal help once someone else has wrecked your vehicle)

not so many questions, doesn’t ask for grandma’s tampon size or if you like cats more than dogs, but every one is necessary according to the calculating software sitting in our office.

So if I can’t reduce the number of questions (hey, we don’t ask how many miles you’ve got or what colour the thing is… because it doesn’t affect the premium), I’m wondering how should they be presented esp in light of this (new to me) idea of gradual engagement as a possible way to show the form or just all-at-once you-see-what-you-need-to-fill-in style.

It does seem gradual engagement might be meant more for new sites with some cool neat-o app or something though…

I’d say that if having it all on one page looks too daunting and you can easily break it up into obvious sections (eg you, your car) then that might help. But if you are splitting it over multiple pages, make it clear that this is just the first page of several, and give some indication (eg a progress bar) of how far through the process the user is at each stage.

We do split up the longer form for closing a policy (person, vehicle, coverage options), though this shorter quote form doesn’t quite have enough to group well.

Definitely if I was doing the string-along I’d state in a clear area which page out of how many the user was on.
In the ListApart article an investment or finance company was used as a “bad” example where they had some questions as sliders, one per page. In the comments many people said it was rather nice. Conflicting opinions.

For those dozen or so questions I’d be completely happy to see them on one page for a simple quote. Most people can count to 10 it’s only when you get to about 20 per page they get daunting.

You could always give the option to radio button as to whether they wanted 5, 10 or 15 questions per page but if you have less than 20 its usually overkill.

I think the term ‘gradual engagement’ is just a buzzword really it has been that way for years. Some sites just want to grab all your details before they let you enter and others let you play or see a demo before you decide upon whether it is the right service/product for you.

Page x of y is usually sufficient or question x of y if it’s a fixed value.