Increase Form Conversions Using X-Autocompletetype
Have you ever been filling out a checkout form or any form that asks for your information and noticed that sometimes all your information is filled in automatically? How does that work, and how can you implement it on your own website? We know that forms are a big barrier between a visit and a conversion, so it’s important to make it as easy as possible for your visitors to accomplish the task.
Until this year, browsers had to figure out for themselves what field was asking for what information. Labels on form fields are probably the most popular element referenced to in order to figure out what the field was asking for. Therefore, it’s important to use labels such as “First Name” and “Email” rather than “What should we call you?” and “Where should we send your e-book?” However, Google announced in January that it would be implementing a new html tag called x-autocompletetype that would let developers specify what a field is asking for.
Even though it’s been almost a year since the announcement, I’ve yet to see many forms using this new tag. The official tag reference lists all of the possible values you can use, which even includes a tag for an avatar/photo - great news for dating sites!
This change will most likely end in more modern browsers adopting the capability, and may even become a standard html tag in the future.
