Dynamic Page Content and Forms
WHAT IT IS:
Another advantage of building a consolidated 1st-party user experience with native features like forms, e-commerce, and events, is that we can serve dynamic content to personalize page content and forms for the user. This is perhaps easier to demonstrate than explain, so let’s take a look some examples to illustrate the concept.
Please enter your name for the demos below. This is only to personalize the content on this page, no data will be saved.
We can serve personalized content a couple different ways. First, if a user is logged-in to their account on the website, we can use the data that they have saved to their profile like name, email, etc. In addition to displaying dynamic content (like the welcome message above), form fields can be dynamically populated with the logged-in user’s information.
Secondly, we can create pages that display dynamic content after a user has filled out a form. This is done by link decoration, which means passing the submitted data as query string parameters appended to the redirect link.
For Example—
Check out this yard sign landing page example below— if the user is logged into their account, the form will be automatically filled in with their saved information. Of course, new visitors will have to fill it out, but the forms are also optimized with autocomplete input attributes.
After the user submits the form, the confirmation page redirect uses query string parameters to inject dynamic content. In addition to the personalized confirmation message, the donation form also gets automatically filled in with whatever they entered on the previous page. All they have to fill in is their occupation/ employer and payment method.
The user’s entered data also gets plugged into the automated email, with the links in the email also using query strings for other personalized pages and dynamic forms.
WHY IT MATTERS:
Building a user experience that values the user.
In his classic book, “How To Win Friends And Influence People,” Dale Carnegie devotes all of chapter three to explain how impactful it can be to remember and use people’s names.
“The information we are imparting or the request we are making takes on a special importance when we approach the situation with the name of the individual… Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”
Political campaigns should endeavor to cultivate a sense of belonging. Even small gestures like using a person’s name can make them feel valued. It’s common practice to personalize email and SMS content, and the website should be no different.
Building a user experience that encourages a specific outcome.
Of course, our ultimate objective is to guide users toward certain actions. Being able to dynamically populate form input fields increases usability, which is one of the four principles of user experience design.* Anywhere it’s possible, we should be removing conversion obstructions (e.g. unnecessary load time, clicks, keystrokes, etc.). If we’re trying to get users to take some action, we should make it as easy as possible for them to do so.
Here’s one example of optimized usability— the “Thanks” page redirect (after a donation is made). After a personalized thank-you message, we give the user the option to activate their account, if they’re not already logged in to the website (read more about user accounts). We even fill in a suggested username, concatenating the user’s first and last name.
There’s also a section on that page offering yard signs. The user’s data is also passed into this form, auto-populating hidden input fields. This means that they can request a yard sign with one click after making a donation. That yard sign request gets sent separately as a new entry, triggering different automated emails and workflows.
Side UX note— you can’t ask the user a question like, “Do you live in District 18?” without showing them exactly where the district’s boundaries are. That’s why it’s so important to include that custom map. Without the map, that question might cause confusion and frustration, and that would negatively impact the conversion rate.