By providing clear and concise instructions or explanations, help text enhances the overall user experience. It streamlines the form-filling process, reduces errors, and ensures data accuracy. Moreover, it promotes accessibility, making the form accessible to a wider range of users. Help text also contributes to transparency and trust, as users appreciate the guidance and are more likely to engage positively with the form. Ultimately, it’s a practical way to improve user satisfaction, reduce support inquiries, and increase the likelihood of successful form submissions, making it a worthwhile addition to any web form.
For accessibility reasons we recommend writing clear, concise help text as opposed to using tooltips which can present usability difficulties to some users. We also recommend using the field label or help text over the placeholder setting for improved accessibility.
There are various you can add help text to a form which are explained below.
Field Help Text
Help text can be added directly to fields and can be positioned at the top or bottom of the field itself. Help text can also be made dynamic.
How to Add Help Text to a Field
- Click the field settings icon. The field settings will appear in the sidebar.
- In the Basic tab, enter help text for the field. HTML is supported in this field, e.g. to add link. WS Form variables, including #calc and #text are also supported in help text. Furthermore, some field types have specific variables, e.g.
#word_counton a text field.
- Click Save & Close.
How to Change the Position of Help Text on a Field
- Click the field settings icon. The field settings will appear in the sidebar.
- In the Advanced tab, select a Help Position. Choose from Top or Bottom.
- Click Save & Close.
The help text position can also be set throughout the form by changing the Default Help Position setting in the Style tab of Form Settings. Set the Help Position setting on fields to Default to use the default help position.
Form Help Text
Help text can also be added at a form level to help describe what the form is for or perhaps to described a section of fields.
Field types that can be used to add help text include: