AI / Design Communication & Image Prompting
Can this field be deleted?
Put every field on trial instead of squeezing the form tighter
These are my form fields: [list and what each is for]. Put every field on trial for deletion, answering four questions each: 1) If it were gone, could the user still finish the task; 2) Could this information come from somewhere else — the account, a previous entry, the device, a third party; 3) Could it be asked later, in settings, on a second visit, or on the result page; 4) What does it buy (compliance, fraud control, personalisation, marketing), and is that worth one more abandonment. Then give four columns: must delete, can merge, can defer, must keep. Finish with the trimmed field count and order, and an estimate of how completion rate moves. Do not cut for the sake of cutting.
How to use
Before deleting a field, ask support and sales who backfills that information today, and at what cost.
Good for
- A signup form has 11 fields and mobile completion sits at 43% — asking why each field exists is more persuasive than cutting the form in half.
- Compliance added two fields and the business side wants three more — this trial separates must keep from can wait.
Not for
- Legally mandated collection — tax filing, account opening, medical intake: the fields are set by regulation, and only their order and explanation can change.
- Compliance added two fields and the business side wants three more — this trial separates 'must keep' from 'can wait'.
Example
Input
A B2B trial request form with 11 fields: name, phone, email, company, company size, job title, city, industry, budget range, how they heard about us, and opt-in to marketing email
What you get
Two must go: job title and city do nothing for provisioning a trial. One merge: email becomes optional after phone verification. Three defer: company size, budget range, and how they heard about us move to the onboarding page after activation. Four must stay: name, phone, company, and industry, which sales needs for routing. That takes 11 fields to 6, with an estimated 12 to 18 point lift in mobile completion — paid for by thinner lead data that sales has to collect on the first call.
Common mistakes
- Cutting first and never asking who backfills the information — the fields you save turn into support calls and sales follow-ups.
- Fusing two unrelated questions into one field, company and job title for instance — users do not know what to type, and the error message gets harder to write.
Try tweaking it like this
- Price each field instead: convert abandonment into a cost per field and weigh it against what the field buys — better than four columns for convincing the business side.
- Run both versions: ship the 6-field and 11-field forms for a week each and let the data decide.