How to Display Steppers on Mobile Forms

UX Movement
2 min readDec 18, 2018

When your form has multiple pages, a stepper is a must. Steppers keep users informed about their progress by indicating what step they’re on and how many steps are left.

Displaying steppers on mobile forms is a challenge due to the limited screen space. Using the same stepper on your desktop form for your mobile form causes readability and visibility issues.

Linear Vs. Radial Steppers

Linear steppers work well for desktop forms, but not for mobile forms. When you use a linear stepper on your mobile form, you decrease the readability of the step titles and the visibility of progress tracking.

Forcing the step titles to fit a tight space leads to smaller text sizes your users will have trouble reading. Not only that, but the progress visibility is less clear because it shows too many text and numbers at once. This creates visual noise and makes it harder for users to distinguish their current step.

Use a radial stepper on your mobile form because it’ll give your users clearer progress tracking and better readability. Your users will know at a glance what step they’re on because the radial stepper gives enough room for large step titles. It displays one step at a time allowing users to focus on the current step. It also offers enough room to indicate what the…

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