How Redesigning Complex Service Forms Boosted Publishing Success on Mobile

Redesign Background

Local services encompass more than 100 categories, each with distinct information and numerous required fields, making PC publishing the primary scenario. However, PC publishing cannot serve B‑end users without computers and suffers from poor convenience and immediacy.

After analyzing the PC publishing functions, processes, and user pain points, we recently redesigned the app‑side publishing flow.

Figure 1: Old PC version vs. new app version for local service publishing

Redesign Approach

How can we lessen the publishing burden, improve efficiency, and raise success rates when moving such a complex form to mobile? Eight methods were applied:

Psychological reduction – start easy then hard : Prioritize low‑difficulty “basic information” in the first step, lowering users’ mental load before they enter the more complex service‑specific fields.

Operational reduction – customized form content : After merchants select the service they want to publish, they first choose which service items and add‑ons apply to them. During editing, only the minimal required fields appear, and merchants can add sub‑items as needed, ensuring data authenticity while reducing entry effort.

Visual reduction – strengthen information hierarchy : Clear visual hierarchy reduces recognition and cognitive load. We decomposed PC‑side service items into three hierarchical levels and used spacing and font differences to make each level easily identifiable.

Visual reduction – improve form scanability : Align labels at the top of inputs (as research by Luke Wroblewski shows this minimizes eye movement) and use low‑contrast placeholder text, so users can quickly scan the form without being distracted.

Efficiency – multi‑level linked keyboard : The keyboard stays open and automatically moves focus to the next field after each entry. When a group of sibling items is completed, it scrolls to the first child of the next parent level, eliminating repeated keyboard pop‑ups and keeping users immersed.

Efficiency – automatic title concatenation : Titles are built from two parts – service highlight and service scope. The system extracts the service name from the selected list and concatenates it with the merchant‑provided highlight, improving click‑through rates and relevance.

Efficiency – quick input & guided prompts : Provide market‑average price suggestions with a “Use” button, clickable description tags, and guided photo‑album selection to help merchants upload appropriate images efficiently.

Efficiency – service templates : Analyze high‑conversion posts to create standardized templates. Merchants fill only the prompted fields, dramatically speeding up the creation of quality service listings.

Figure 2: Form‑efficiency design methods

Figure 3: Revised form flow

Figure 4: Form customization

Figure 5: Information hierarchy

Figure 6: Scanability design

Figure 7: Multi‑level linked keyboard

Figure 8: Automatic title concatenation

Figure 9: Quick input & guided prompts

Figure 10: Service templates

Conclusion

By optimizing the flow from simple to complex, customizing forms, strengthening visual hierarchy, and improving scanability, we reduced psychological, operational, and visual burdens. Additional tools—multi‑level keyboards, auto‑generated titles, quick inputs, and service templates—further boosted cognitive efficiency and entry speed. Gray‑scale rollout data confirmed that the redesign significantly increased publishing success rate and efficiency.