A customer requested recently to have conditionally required fields within their website job application form. The current application form uses the Gravity Forms WordPress plugin to power the form, however Gravity Forms by default can only make fields required or not.
We got to work, Gravity Forms allows us to modify the form workflow without affecting Gravity Forms itself, which is pretty handy and opens up a lot of new possibilities.
A few hours later and all done. Here’s a quick demo;
Conditional Fields Demo
Pretty neat huh? Once the recruiter saw our demo, they went to town with their forms and implemented this throughout the website.
The script can also be teamed with conditional display, which shows/hides fields depending on previous choices.
Long unwieldy forms now only display relevant fields, making those fields correctly optional or mandatory
Real World Uses of Conditionally Required Fields
It’s cool, but where can this be useful? Another example where we used the same technique is for an aviation recruitment company.
They have one large registration form, with the first question asking which position they wish to apply for, either cadet, captain or crew.
Obviously each position requires different information, so we only show the relevant fields depending on the option they chose.
We then also have further conditions, making certain fields required is necesary.
A previously huge form where each candidate had to guess which fields they needed to complete, resulting in missed fields requiring follow up contact from the recruitment team is now a simple user journey ending in all of the data required.
Do your web forms needing smartening? Get in touch with us today.