How to decide whether wizard stages should be split or united
I have a wizard where, conceptually, the first step is a URL input field. Once filled and activated, the system pulls some stuff from that address and the rest of the wizard steps deal with that stuff.
The wizard is quite large on the screen (because some of its steps involve tables) and dedicating all that real estate to just one input field seems very odd visually. The 2nd step doesn't require a lot of space either, so I'm tempted to unite the two. However, since the 2nd step can only be enabled after the first is submitted and validated, having them on the same screen inside a wizard seems like a "hack". After all - the whole point of the wizard is to reflect consecutively dependent steps, and logically they definitely belong to separate stages.
Split or unite? Why?