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Currently I'm designing a website that has a form wizard, the form wizard has 11-12 steps and I personally thought that are too many steps for a form wizard, is that still a good number for a form wizard?

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  • Isn't this entirely dependant on the content of the forms?
    – O. R. Mapper
    Jun 4, 2017 at 20:53

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There is no thumb rule for it. It depends on what is the purpose of wizard.

If the wizard contains all the critical field that are needed for a certain operation, then number of step do not warrant such attention.

Ideally the number of step should as few as possible. It is always good to avoid redundant data field and giving user the ability to skip optional field/steps in wizard.

Now if this seems confusing, You can always ask yourself simple questions:

  1. Would you as a user go through so many steps?
  2. Which steps seem unnecessary?
  3. Is the question really needed for the said activity?
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    "giving user the ability to skip optional field/steps in wizard." - it is not clear to me whether skipping optional fields means reducing the number of steps rather than pre-filling optional fields with default values. I frequently find myself wondering what the value of a given field is by default if it was not shown in the wizard.
    – O. R. Mapper
    Jun 5, 2017 at 6:33
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    At times i find myself filling out a step in a wizard that i can skip. Me being lazy, I always try to skip optional fields. This can be done, either by marking optional fields (or otherway mandatory fields) or if default values are applicable then the values should be filled. Bottom line is that user should not be bothered by such optional fields. Less time to fill out a wizard, better the user experience.
    – Aditya Durgude
    Jun 5, 2017 at 6:51
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You should always aim for as few steps as possible, or rather just enough steps for them to complete the task. Of course, it also depends on how much content is contained within each step, because it is really the density of information that is important rather than exactly how many steps.

I would say that if you had to use around 10 steps, it could either be because each step is too short and you should combine some of the steps, or that you have too much content and therefore streamlining the process would be ideal.

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There is no thumb rule. From my personal experience with conducting usability session. I especially found 3–5 steps work the best. Because 2-step in wizard is silly and a 10-step wizard can seem overwhelming or tedious for users.

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  • Should every steps only contain 1 input field or we can add more than 1 input fields in each step? In my case, I have 11-12 input fields that will give impact to the listing of product.
    – Rob H. Yamin
    Jun 4, 2017 at 17:35
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I agree with Michael Lai that wizard should have minimum no.of screens. By seeing 12 steps users might get bored or annoyed and may leave the task.

For reference: https://uxplanet.org/wizard-design-pattern-8c86e14f2a38 -- Best wizard practices section

Keep the number of steps at the minimum

http://ui-patterns.com/patterns/Wizard

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I Even i do agree, that it depends on the importance of field data.

With my experience, i would recommend to review few more points as mentioned below to reduce no. of steps.

  • Remove duplication of data capturing
  • Simplify the form by capturing only the relevant information
  • Group the form elements which would avoid no. of steps
  • Avoid showing non editable fields and show them on confirmation screen
  • Capture the details of any section data, only which can be validated

I have experienced many form designs that are too long, which would duplicate the form elements and capture the details which cant be validated. This would absolutely don't make any sense.

User would get frustrated to complete the task. There are high chances in drop off rates.

See if you could afford to consider the above points to simplify the form.

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