Making the profession field required: +12.52% completed requests
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsMaking the profession field mandatory, with more options to choose from, raised visits to Qualicorp's request-received page by 12.52%.
Wingify Services, the consulting team at VWO, ran the test with the Brazilian health plan administrator over seven weeks.
It was published as a VWO case study.
- Visits to the request-received page, which confirms a lead: +12.52%, reported at 100% confidence.
- Visits to the plan results page: +4.33%.
- The test ran for 7 weeks with a 50/50 split. Sample size was not shared.
The change
The variant makes the profession field required and adds more options, so results are never empty.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
The profession field in the health plan quote form was optional and offered a 'none' option. Visitors who picked it got no health plans on the results page.
Variant
The profession field became required, so visitors could not continue without picking one, and the list included more professions to choose from.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Plans in this market depend on profession. Without one, visitors hit an empty results page and had nowhere to go. A required field removed that dead end.
- More profession options meant more visitors could find one that fit, instead of falling back on 'none'.
- This test shows that adding a requirement is not always friction. A field that makes the next step work can lift conversion.
Caveats: Sample size was not shared, and the result is reported in a vendor case study.
Who ran it
VWO ran this test and published the results (VWO case study). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on VWO →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we make a field required when the results depend on it, and offer enough options to cover most visitors, then more visitors will reach a useful result and submit a lead, because nobody lands on an empty results page.
- Primary metric
- Completed lead submissions (visits to the confirmation page)
- Guardrails
- Drop-off on the step with the required field
- Share of visitors reaching the results page
- Lead quality
- Who should test it
- Lead-gen and comparison sites where results or pricing depend on one answer, such as insurance, loans or B2B quotes. If an optional field has no effect on results, making it required will probably just add friction.
Questions
Do required fields always lower form conversion?
No. In Qualicorp's test, making the profession field required raised completed requests by 12.52%, because without it many visitors saw no results at all.
When should I make a form field required?
When your results, pricing or routing depend on it.
Make sure the options cover most of your visitors so nobody gets stuck.