Progress tracker step 5a and 5b

Question

I am working on a project that involves multiple screens and forms. There are approximately 15 screens the user will go through to complete a registration. Due to technical reasons dev team want to label one screen as 5a (driver license info) and the second as 5b (address info), user then moves to screen 6. Is it ok from a UX stand point to label multiple steps as 5a, 5b or should it just 5 and 6? thanks

Answer 1

The stepper with a, b, c is normal in long forms, although extremely confusing. In Spain, the online declaration of workers' income is completely done based on steps with substeps. Personally, every time I do it I have no idea what step I'm in, it's only useful at the end, when the errors comes, then an alert shows in which a, b, c section the error is.

For small forms I don't think a substep within each step makes sense. In fact, there are technical alternatives, such as vertical scrolling within the same step to access its sections, in this case, yes, a, b, c.

If there is no other alternative and the design must be linear with steps and sub-steps, I would do my best for any user:

1. Understand it immediately
2. Know clearly what step they are in
3. Understand there are steps and substeps

The only way to achieve this is through contrast, and this is where design comes. I can only suggest examples since the question doesn't have a mockup.

• Differentiates well which is the step and which are the substeps (Size, color, figure/ground...)
• Place the step forward or backward marks by grouping all the content:

< STEP  substep_1   substep_2   substep_3 >

• Clearly displays the current step (Size, color, figure/ground...)

Answer 2

Try to design this without step numbers. It's good to show users their progress, but after a certain point, a large number of steps can be intimidating and might lead to users putting off the task. Plus, you get into situations as you optimize your stepper where you'll be moving steps around, and you'll constantly have to be reassigning steps to step numbers.

Opt instead to show the step name with a progress indicator.

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