This is the 5th in a series of posts on identifying and fixing hidden leaks in the donor retention bucket.

-The Editors

In the field of product development ‘the minimum viable product (MVP)’ is the product with the highest return on investment versus risk.

When it comes to nonprofit websites and forms it seems to me we should be applying a similar principle to assure the highest online participation from donors with the minimum risk of frustrating and losing them.

Noted web-designer Derek Featherstone calls this ‘minimally viable interaction’. In other words, what are the minimum number of steps a donor has to take to complete a task.

I’ve harped on this before in The Hidden Cost of Complexity and in Fixing Hidden Leaks #2: Donation Pages and Payment Systems.

Today I’m focusing on a most fundamental and often the most frustrating part of a donor’s online experience: forms.

Probably no part of the online environment is more fraught that those involving forms — donation forms, advocacy and petition forms, forms seeking information.

The forms of most nonprofits are simply too complex. They require the donor to fill in too much information. They contain too many ‘optional fields’. They represent a minefield of donor frustration.

Most forms designers, webmasters or fundraisers see a donation form as an opportunity to reinforce the case for support … to find out something more about a donor … or to recommend a friend.

A donor sees herself making a gift. Period.

So why make these forms so complex by adding lots of ‘optional’ boxes? Why not make the interaction so minimal (think Amazon One-Click) that it’s almost invisible? Because someone in the organization has probably said ‘we want this from the donor’ … ’we also want to tell them that’ … and ‘we also want them to do this plus that.’

In my experience most of the ‘optional’ stuff that organizations want is not only unnecessary, but also seldom or ever used, and when it is used, often ends up annoying the donor.

Let’s focus on the needs of the donor, instead of the wants of the organization. We can do this by honestly answering this simple question: What is the simplest way for the donor to get through this process and does the design of our forms reflect this?

How have you succeeded in resisting the trap of complex forms loaded with ‘optional’ requests?

Roger