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Adaptive Placeholders(blog.circleci.com)

9 years ago from Jonathan Courtney, UX Designer/Founder at AJ&Smart

  • Jonathan CourtneyJonathan Courtney, 9 years ago

    I agree that traditional labels are the safest solution here and they're also what I recommend to my clients - but still found this interesting.

    The advantage of placeholders is that the form can look shorter and more simple to fill out, increasing the conversion rate at times. The dissadvantages are too big to ignore though.

    This "floating label" solution seems like an interesting wy to solve it and I'd love to A/B test it.

    2 points
    • Darth BaneDarth Bane, 9 years ago

      I'm willing to bet traditional labels actually perform better in general than placeholders do. We split-tested this at Tastebuds on about 150,000 users and traditional labels drastically improved conversion on our landing page.

      0 points
      • Jonathan CourtneyJonathan Courtney, 9 years ago (edited 9 years ago )

        Against placeholders, traditional labels win - 100% agree. I've also seen this proven in split tests. But it's because the labels are being hidden when the user inputs text.

        What I would like to see is a split test using traditional labels and the "adaptive placeholder" method. Right now I can't imagine why the Adaptive method would perform worse.

        1 point
        • Darth BaneDarth Bane, 9 years ago

          I can see many potential reasons why it could perform worse, including:

          1. The functionality breaking on some machines
          2. Too much going on, focus is drawn to the effect rather than the main objective
          3. Placement diffusion from a user perspective

          ...and so on. I love split tests, would also like to see results. Sometimes the craziest ideas test better. But for the most part, traditional simplicity wins.

          1 point
          • Jonathan CourtneyJonathan Courtney, 9 years ago

            I think your point "2" could be the killer. Too much movement and distraction during form-filling is never a good thing. Nice point.

            Buuuut - I still want to see some results. Gimme.

            0 points