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How to Design Forms People Actually Finish

Ask first and charge last, group the quick questions, and give every screen the right Continue. Seven lessons from a passport application and a psychiatry sign-up, each with the before and after.

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A long paper form folded like an accordion, covered in grey lines, boxes and checkboxes, folding down into one small white card with a single field, an orange ticked checkbox and a black button.

It’s 2026, and people still hate filling in forms. The people who make them still get the same things wrong: they ask you to pay before the first question, turn one tap into six, and hide Continue under the keyboard.

Here’s what I learned from two of them: HelloGov, a 17-step passport application I worked on for a year, and a concept I made for Legion Health’s psychiatry sign-up. GOV.UK’s guide to structuring forms is still the best rulebook I know, so I’ll show where I followed it and where I broke it on purpose.

1. Ask first, pay last

HelloGov used to work like a shop. You picked a service and a delivery speed, created an account, added shipping, paid, and only then started the 17-step application.

We turned it around. Now you give a few details, fill in the application, see the add-ons when they matter, and pay at the very end.

HelloGov’s order before and after, and how the new one rolled out. Drawn for this article.

The first step now asks who the order is for, your name, your date of birth and which documents you need. A green line under it says it plainly: no payment until your application is complete.

HelloGov's first step: who you're ordering for, first and last name, date of birth, and which documents you need, each with a starting price. A green line reads: No payment until your application is complete.
Step 1 of the new order. No card, and nothing to pay yet.

To a lot of people that sounds obvious. Of course you pay at the end. But when millions of dollars of revenue come in through one checkout, “obvious” doesn’t convince anyone, and it shouldn’t. So we didn’t argue. We built a prototype of the new order and sent 20 to 30% of the Google Ads traffic to it. It beat the control, so it went to 50%, then to 100%.

By the time people pay now, they’ve put in about 15 minutes and can see exactly what they’re getting.

Do this: Put payment at the end. If someone pushes back, don’t debate it. Test it on a slice of real traffic.

2. Open with the question that rules people out

GOV.UK says to start with the questions that tell people they’re not eligible, so you don’t waste their time. Legion does ask that first: are you based in Texas? But on a phone, a patient quote and a paragraph about being the right fit come first, and the question starts near the bottom of the screen.

In the concept, the question comes first, with Yes and No right under it. The quote, signed “Legion Health Patient”, becomes Legion’s Google rating and a named Google review. That’s the kind of proof people look for before they share anything about their mental health.

Then design the No. On the live flow, a No turns red and a box of resources opens inside the question card. In the concept it gets a page of its own: what the answer means in one line, the services that can help, each with its own button, and Change your answer for a tap made by mistake.

Legion Health’s first question on a phone, live and in my concept, and what a No leads to in the concept. Drawn for this article.

Some answers can’t wait. If someone says they’re at risk of harming themselves or others, the concept leads with 988 as the only filled button on the page, ahead of the Crisis Text Line and 911.

Legion Health's three rule-out answers on a phone. Top row, live today: Not in Texas, At risk right now and Under 18 each turn the answer red and open a list of resources inside the question card. Bottom row, the concept: each answer gets its own page with services and buttons, and At risk right now leads with a filled Call 988 button.
Three answers that rule you out today. Live on the top row, my concept below.

Do this: Ask the rule-out questions first, and give every No a page that tells people where to go next.

GOV.UK says to start with one thing per page, and most of the time I agree. HelloGov’s eligibility step is where I didn’t.

Six yes-or-no questions check whether you can renew by mail. Do you still have your last passport? Were you at least 16 when it was issued? Was it issued less than 15 years ago? They’re all about the same thing, and most people are eligible. So they sit on one page, already set to Yes. Most people read them and tap Continue. If one doesn’t apply, you tap No, and the flow takes you somewhere else.

The same six eligibility questions, counted in taps for someone who is eligible. Drawn for this article.

Leave them empty and everyone taps Yes six times before they can move on. Split them over six screens and the form gets six screens longer. Either way, the whole thing slows down.

HelloGov's eligibility step on desktop: six yes-or-no questions about the applicant's last passport, each set to Yes, with the application's sections listed on the left.
The real eligibility step: six questions on one page, all set to Yes.

My rule of thumb: if questions are related and quick, they can share a page. If something is big and needs attention, it gets its own step. Your passport details and your birth certificate details are both about documents, but each one sends you off to find a document and copy from it. Those are two steps, not one.

A pre-selected answer is a trade-off, though. GOV.UK’s design system says not to pre-select radios, because people miss the question or submit the wrong answer. It worked here because nearly everyone answers Yes, and HelloGov’s team reviews every application before it’s submitted. If a wrong answer would slip through unchecked, leave the radios empty.

Do this: Group questions by how much attention they need, not by topic. Pre-select only when almost everyone gives the same answer and a mistake gets caught later.

4. Show it, don’t describe it

HelloGov’s first step asked what kind of passport service you need, and it was a wall of text. I suggested adding icons, so each option reads at a glance. The CEO wasn’t sure it was worth it, so we ran it as its own experiment. New passport orders went up 23%.

HelloGov’s first step, before and after the icons. Drawn for this article; the old screen was a wall of text.

People scan fast on a first step. A small picture does a lot of the work.

The same idea runs through the whole application. Lots of people don’t know a passport book from a passport card, so the question shows one. When we ask for the passport number, a sample shows exactly where to find it.

Two HelloGov screens on a phone. Do you have your passport book in your possession? shows an example passport book above three answers. Tell us the details of your Passport Book asks for names, the issue date and the passport book number, with a sample passport page that circles where the number is.
An example passport book on the question, and a sample with the number circled.

Do this: Whenever people have to recognise something, like a document, a number or a type of service, show it before they have to guess.

5. Give every screen the right Continue

David Hamill, a UX consultant, made a point about this recently that’s worth repeating. In his experience of watching people fill in forms, most don’t press Enter or Go to move on. They tap the next field or button with a finger, and scroll to find it if it’s off screen. Pin Continue to the bottom of a mobile screen and the keyboard covers it, so people tap out of the field to close the keyboard, then tap the button.

So where does Continue go? It depends on the screen:

  • One yes-or-no question. Make the answers real buttons that move you on. You don’t need Continue at all.
  • A list of yes-or-no questions. Use radios, and stick Continue to the bottom so nobody scrolls to find it. There’s no keyboard on this screen to cover it.
  • A couple of fields. Put Continue right under the last field, and make the keyboard’s Go button submit too. People use both.
Where Continue goes depends on the screen. Drawn for this article.

HelloGov uses all three. The passport book question is three full-width answers. The eligibility list keeps Continue stuck to the bottom, because putting it after the last question meant a lot of scrolling. The details screens keep it under the fields.

Do this: Before you pin a button, open the keyboard. If the keyboard covers it, move the button.

6. Let people type dates

GOV.UK asks for a date of birth in three text boxes: day, month and year. The idea underneath is right: let people type. What I’d avoid is the version many forms still ship, with three dropdowns, or a wheel you scroll back through 35 years.

What has worked best for us is one field you type straight into on the number keyboard, with the format shown inside it. You can put a calendar next to it for people who’d rather pick, which is what HelloGov’s first step does. But typing comes first.

The same date of birth, picked from a wheel and typed. Drawn for this article.

When a date is missing or wrong, say what right looks like. In the Legion concept, the error reads: “Add your date of birth, like 04/12/1991.”

Do this: Let people type dates on the number keyboard. Show the format in the field, and again in the error.

7. Keep progress on mobile, and say it in words

A passport application is long, and knowing how much is left is what keeps people going. On desktop, HelloGov shows the five sections in a sidebar beside every question, with the percentage and the step: 10%, step 1 of 17. More than 60% of the traffic came from phones, where there’s no room for a sidebar, and the easy move is to cut it.

Instead, it folds into a bar at the top. The current section, the percentage and a progress bar stay in view, and one tap opens the full summary.

The sidebar folds into a bar on the phone, and a tap brings it back. Below it, the same idea in words. Drawn for this article.

Here’s the real one, from desktop to phone:

The sidebar folds into a dropdown, and a tap brings the summary back.

Numbers aren’t always the clearest way to say it, either. Near the end of the Legion concept, progress reads “Two more steps” instead of “Step 4 of 6, 67% Complete”.

Do this: Never cut progress on mobile. Fold it. And near the end, count what’s left in words.

Before you ship a form

  1. Write down why you need every question. GOV.UK calls it a question protocol. Cut what you can’t defend.
  2. Ask the questions that rule people out first, and give every No somewhere to go.
  3. Put payment at the end.
  4. Group questions that are related and quick. Give anything that needs a document its own step.
  5. Pre-select only when nearly everyone gives the same answer and a mistake gets caught.
  6. Show the document, the number or the option. Don’t just describe it.
  7. Open the keyboard on every screen. Can you still see Continue?
  8. Let people type dates.
  9. Fold progress on mobile. Don’t cut it.
  10. Settle arguments with a test on real traffic, not in a meeting.

Nobody finishes a form because it looks nice. They finish it because every screen asks for one small, obvious thing, and the way forward is always under their thumb.