What is a welcome screen on a form?

What to put on it

Four pieces of information do almost all the work. A plain statement of purpose that names the thing, such as a booking request for the spring workshop, rather than a greeting. Who is asking, since an unfamiliar sender is the first reason people close a form. What to have ready, which the GOV.UK design system lists as a core job of a start page, alongside roughly how long the task will take. And what happens to the answers: who reads them, when a reply comes, and whether the form is anonymous. Finish with a single button whose label describes the action. Leave out eligibility rules that need a paragraph of explanation; the same guidance recommends asking questions inside the service to find out whether somebody qualifies, rather than making them read a wall of conditions first. The W3C forms tutorial makes the accessibility version of the same point: overall instructions, such as how required answers are marked and any time limits, belong before the form begins.

Writing an honest time estimate

The estimate is the line people read most closely and the one most often guessed. Time the form yourself on a phone, then ask two colleagues who did not build it to do the same, and quote the slowest result rounded up. About four minutes on a form that takes four minutes builds trust; a quick two minutes on the same form costs you the people who believed it, at the exact point they realise it was not true. Update the estimate whenever questions are added. If the time varies a lot, because some people skip whole sections, give a range and say what makes it longer, such as having several children to register or documents to upload. If the form closes on a particular date, or places are limited, say so here as well, because a deadline discovered on the last page is a common reason for an angry email rather than a submission.

When to leave it out

A welcome screen is one more click before the first answer, so it should earn its place. Leave it off a short internal form whose purpose is obvious from the link, a contact form embedded on a page that already explains itself, and a quick poll opened from an email that has already said everything. It earns its place on long forms, forms sent to strangers, research surveys that need to explain who is running them, and anything collecting sensitive information. When the form is sent by email, keep the invitation and the welcome screen consistent in sender name, purpose and time estimate, since a mismatch between the two is enough to make careful people suspect a scam.

The welcome screen is not consent

It is tempting to treat a paragraph of terms followed by a Start button as agreement. It is weak evidence of anything, because nobody can tell whether the person read the text or simply wanted to begin. Use the welcome screen to explain, in two or three sentences, what will be collected and why, and link to the full privacy information. Then ask for any agreement you actually need as a question inside the form, where the answer is recorded with the submission. The same applies to research participation statements: the screen informs, the form records the decision. Keeping the two jobs apart also makes the welcome screen shorter, which is the other thing it needs to be, and it means the recorded answer can be exported and checked later if anyone asks what was agreed.

Welcome screens in the form builder

Both kinds of form can open with a welcome screen. It is on by default for conversational forms and off by default for classic ones. The screen takes an eyebrow, which is a small tag above the headline, a title, a description, the button text, an estimated time and an image, which sits on the left or right in the split layout. There are 10 layouts: editorial, split, centered, card, document, overlay, minimal, stat, masthead and poster. Split, centered and overlay are built around an image, so choose one of the others when there is no photograph worth showing.

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