Form abandonment

Loupe

Applicants starting a form and stopping, which is usually a design problem rather than a motivation problem.

What is form abandonment?

Form abandonment is the pattern of applicants beginning a form and stopping before submission. It is measured by position, since the field at which applicants stop identifies the obstacle. Attributing abandonment to motivation is comfortable and usually wrong, because the position clusters far too tightly for individual choice to explain it.

Also called: Drop-off

Why abandonment is a property of the form

When abandonment is discussed internally, the explanation offered is that applicants were not serious enough to finish. The data rarely supports that reading, since abandonment clusters at specific fields, typically a document upload the applicant cannot produce at that moment. Thousands of unrelated people stopping at the same field is a statement about the field. Treating abandonment as a design measurement rather than a motivation problem makes it something an organisation can act on.

  • Abandonment clusters at particular fields, which identifies the obstacle precisely.
  • Applicants who abandon never appear in any satisfaction measurement.
  • A scheme's hardest-to-reach applicants abandon at the highest rate.
  • The abandonment position is the cheapest available guide to form redesign.

How form abandonment works

  • Every form session is recorded with the furthest field reached.
  • Abandonment is expressed per field as a share of applicants who arrived there.
  • Sessions are separated by device, since mobile abandonment differs sharply.
  • Fields with the highest abandonment are examined for what they demand.
  • That demand is then either removed or deferred to a later stage.
  • The following cohort is compared against the previous one at the same field.

How form abandonment is evaluated

Form abandonment is examined by position rather than as a single rate. Measure the following for each applicant cohort:

  • abandonment rate per field among applicants who reached it
  • abandonment by device and by connection quality
  • time spent on the field immediately before abandonment
  • return rate among applicants with a saved draft
  • change in abandonment at a field after it was revised

Limitations, risks and common failure modes

  • Abandonment is averaged across the whole form, which hides the field responsible.
  • Sessions from staff testing the form are counted alongside real applicants.
  • A saved draft facility exists while nobody measures whether anyone returns.
  • Abandonment improves because the hardest applicants stopped applying at all.

Related terms

Data quality scoreA graded view of what arrived, so intake quality can be tracked rather than discussed anecdotally.First-pass yieldThe share of submissions accepted without rework, which is the cleanest measure of intake quality.Abandonment rateThe share of callers who give up before reaching a resolution or a person.Conditional logicThe rules that decide which parts of a form appear, and under what circumstances.Containment rateThe share of contacts resolved without reaching a person, which is the number most contact centres are judged on.Form accessibilityMeeting the standards that allow a form to be completed by people using assistive technology, which public procurement increasingly requires.

All 315 terms