Forms

How to mark required fields, with 3,577 fields counted

Mark required fields with an asterisk and a one line legend, or, when nearly every field is required, mark the few optional ones instead. In the 280 forms counted here, 80% of all fields are required and the median form requires 86%, so labelling the exceptions is usually the shorter route.

Nuwan Madhusanka · Co-founder

4 min read · Published 21 October 2026

Mark required fields with an asterisk in the label and a short legend at the top, such as “Fields marked * are required”, or, when almost every field is required, leave those unmarked and add “(optional)” to the few that are not. Across 280 finished forms on this site, 2,869 of 3,577 fields are required, so on most forms marking the optional ones is less work for the reader.

What was counted

The set is the 280 form examples on this site, counted on 21 October 2026: 192 classic forms and 88 conversational ones for fictional Australian businesses and organisations. Every field in the examples stores a required flag, so a script added them up by field kind, by form family and by form. The numbers describe what careful form writers chose to require. They are not response data, so they do not show how many people abandoned a form because of a required field.

Which fields are required

The answers a business cannot act without are required almost every time. Profile blocks, names and signatures are required in 96% to 97% of cases, single choice questions in 95%, dates in 93% and dropdowns in 92%. A choice question is cheap to answer, so requiring it costs little, and an unanswered one leaves a gap in the results.

The free text and evidence fields are where forms let people skip:

Short text: 77% required. The optional ones are second phone numbers, company names for individuals and similar.
Long text: 49%. The open question at the end of a survey is optional in most forms here.
Tables: 50%. A table of previous employers or medicines is often blank for a good reason.
File uploads: 38%. The document may not be to hand.
Photo uploads: 25%.

The job application form shows the pattern: the name, contact details, role, right to work and resume are required, while the work history tables, the cover letter upload and the salary expectation are not.

By form family

Application forms require the most, 93% of their fields, followed by consent forms at 92% and booking forms at 89%. These are forms where a missing answer means the application, consent or booking cannot be processed. Intake forms require 82%, because they ask about history that does not apply to everyone, and survey forms 83%. The 80 forms that sit outside the eight families require 67%, pulled down by long feedback and grant forms with several optional open questions.

Classic and conversational forms require the same share, 80% each. 35 of the 280 forms require every field, and none of them asks more than 17 questions.

Marking: the two conventions

Asterisk and legend. Put an asterisk in the label of each required field and explain it once at the top. The Nielsen Norman Group’s guidance is to mark required fields this way and not to rely on users guessing. Keep the asterisk inside the label element so it is read out by screen readers, as the W3C forms tutorial shows for labels.

Label the optional ones. The GOV.UK Design System’s question pages pattern says to add (optional) to the labels of optional fields and never to mark mandatory fields with asterisks, because a service should only ask what it needs. In this set the median form requires 86% of its fields, so this convention would mean marking one or two fields on a typical form instead of ten. Only 4 of the 3,577 field labels here already say optional in words.

Whichever you choose, use one convention per form, never colour alone, and make the error message say which field is missing. The form error messages post covers the wording, and the form accessibility checklist covers labels.

A rule of thumb

Require what you cannot act without: identity, contact, the choice that routes the request, consent and signature.
Leave free text optional unless the request is meaningless without it.
Leave uploads optional unless the decision needs the document.
If more than about two thirds of the fields end up required, mark the optional ones instead.

The required field page covers what a required field is and how validation enforces it.

In the product

Every field in the form builder has a required switch, and a required field is enforced when the form is submitted. Validation can also set a minimum and maximum length or value, allowed file types and file size. A required rating grid is satisfied once any one row is answered, not every row, which is worth knowing before relying on a grid for complete data. The form field types page lists every field, and the guide to the form builder components shows the settings.

Required share by field kind across the 280 form examples on this site, counted on 21 October 2026 from each field's required flag. Kinds with fewer than 20 fields in the set are left out of the table and counted in the article.
Field kind	Fields	Required	Share required
Profile	35	34	97%
Name	162	155	96%
Signature	113	108	96%
Single choice	846	806	95%
Date	187	174	93%
Dropdown	213	195	92%
Rating grid	60	53	88%
Multiple choice	366	306	84%
Short text	798	612	77%
Number	143	107	75%
Address	48	28	58%
Table	123	61	50%
Long text	331	161	49%
File upload	91	35	38%
Photo upload	28	7	25%
All fields	3,577	2,869	80%

A finished example

A job application form template collects contact details, the role and employment type wanted, work rights, work history, education, a resume and referees, in the same shape for every applicant. This one covers five advertised roles and takes about eight minutes. It also asks for an earliest start date and an expected salary, and the questions that create discrimination risk are deliberately absent.

Read the job application form

Questions people ask

Should I use an asterisk for required fields?

An asterisk works when it is explained once at the top of the form and is part of the label, so a screen reader reads it. The W3C forms tutorial shows required marked in the label text. Colour alone is not enough, because it fails people who cannot see it and disappears in a printed copy.

Is it better to mark optional fields instead?

When most fields are required, yes. The GOV.UK Design System adds (optional) to the labels of optional fields and never marks mandatory ones with asterisks. In this set the median form requires 86% of its fields, so on most of them marking optional fields would mean labelling two or three fields rather than ten.

Should open text questions be required?

Rarely. Only 49% of long text fields here are required, the lowest share of any common question type, because a forced paragraph tends to produce a word typed to get past the field. Require a long answer only when the form cannot be acted on without it, such as the description on a fault report.

Why are file uploads so often optional?

Because the respondent may not have the file to hand, and a required upload ends the form for them. Only 38% of the file upload fields here are required. The usual pattern is to ask for the document if available and follow up, or to require it only where the decision cannot proceed without it.

Do conversational forms need required markers?

Less so, because each screen asks one question and the form will not move on without an answer to a required one. The 88 conversational forms here require 80% of their fields, the same share as classic forms. A short note on optional screens, such as skip this if you have no preference, does the job of a marker.

Written by

Nuwan Madhusanka · Co-founder

Works across the builders and the export paths: how a form becomes a PDF, how a flyer canvas becomes a print file, and how a signed document carries its audit trail.

LinkedIn profile

Sources

Written and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked 21 October 2026.

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