How to make optional fields more subtle to reduce its usage?

Question

How to make optional fields like email a bit more subtle? The intent is to have minimum prominence for the email field and reduce its usage. The reason why we can't remove it is that lead capture fields are decided by the clients and they force us to keep it optional instead of removing it.

There are the 2 options we have: 1)

2) The below image has been labeled as Email but we will keep it as Email (optional). It's a checkbox which will open text input similar to 1st image.:

Which of the two option is better in terms of:

1) More people should understand it's optional and skip it if they want to.
2) user experience wise

Answer 1

This article provides a very good overview of form best-practices, if you haven't yet read it yet. I urge you to read it and reference it.

As for your question, the way I would implement it would be as follows:

• Remove the * for required
• Add in optional label
• Make the grey lighter

---

Please keep in mind that place holders are not labels, and should not be used as such. In your example the labels should move up to above the field once a user begins typing. An easier and more universal input style would be to use a design like this: