Is it Time to Rethink Your Application Form? – Part 2

Detailed or broad, how will your applicants respond?

We’ve worked on thousands of forms for clients and it is important to know your audience and build a form that will best work for them.

If most of the applicants are very tech savvy and spend a lot of time on computers, it would be beneficial to build a form that will deliver you (the administrator) exactly what you want. Each category can drive a different set of fields, so undesired information isn’t collected if not needed. Be very specific with the PDF size requirements, how many images are needed for a particular section, or the format of a video file. Upon obtaining these raw files after the program, this could significantly cut down on the time needed for your organization to extract and modify this data for a presentation.

However, if your applicants are a little less tech savvy, a broader approach could be better. Have the form unified across all categories. This will create familiarity for the user and the contents of the form won’t be shifting based on the category selected, making it easier for them to complete. Set up a set of 10 or 20 upload fields allowing for all file types, letting the user decide what they want to upload and how they want to upload it. Easing up on restrictions can lead to a much higher entry count.

(To be continued)