Wizard or page?

Question

What would you recommend?

We have a "webform" we need to build and we have been talking about using a wizard to ease the steps of this form for the user. But we also talked about editing in these steps and that's why we are thinking about showing these "steps" on a page instead and let the user scroll...

Let me show you what steps we have:

1. Select what kind of report you want to build
2. Build your report by selecting what "modules" you want to show in the report
3. Select the users you want to send this to
4. Choose how often you want this to be sent
5. Done

You have now created a report but you forgot to add John Doe as a receiver of the report so you want to edit the report and add him.

Would you do this with a wizard or just show it all divided by headers?

Let me know!

Answer 1

It's hard to know without testing with users and understanding more about the constraints you have such as whether:

1. users have to do this a lot or infrequently (multiple pages may be less useful here, but not necessarily)
2. questions (form fields) change based on the answers to previous questions (making this work well on one page with dynamically updated/ajax-driven UIs can be hard for users to operate)

Generally I‘d suggest starting with one thing per page.

Here’s a webinar on designing forms which covers this pattern and lots more. (You can jump to 9:22): https://vimeo.com/385388156

Or here’s a blog post I wrote for Smashing Magazine on the pattern too: https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2017/05/better-form-design-one-thing-per-page/

Answer 2

It depends on the target audience, UR is a prerequisite for this to understand the most suitable method.

Majority of process now are step by step with guidance, because it risks less confusion and user error, however it can be slower paced. The question would be do you want it to be slick, or be successful the majority of the time.

Wizards are useful, valuable and time saving, predominantly when you're dealing with a specific target audience who may well complete the action many times over. If it's a one and done process for some users, it will always help to have more explanatory steps, broken up.

Examples: A developer setting up an environment for a new project yet again... wizard.

A citizen looking to apply for disability funding on their government website... page by page guidance so they know they are getting it right.