Should I redirect users to the next step after form submit?
The situation:
Users have to go through a long wizard with about 10 forms/pages. At this point, all 'Save' buttons bring them back to the same page after saving instead of the next step of the process. Redirecting user to the next page after completing the form is of course ideal, but 2 of the forms require multiple inputs (e.g. describe all incidents of xyz. User inputs incident #1 > Save > Comes back to same page to input incident #2. We wanted to ajax this so the user don't have to see a page refresh all the time, but due to tech limitations, we'll have to make do with single-page php forms for now).
As a result, team decided to return user to the same page for ALL the pages for consistency. We have a less prominent 'Next' button to go to the next step.
Concerns:
- Returning user to the same page may indicate that there is something that still needs to be done, but really, all's good. We do have an green notification to indicate success.
- We are concerned that with returning to the same page, it is quite 'passive' and could demotivate the user to quit. Or it would confuse the user (There is a less prominent 'next' button at the bottom that they should click to the next step. Maybe this entire thing can be solved with just having a more prominent 'Next' button?).
- Is it worse to redirect for some pages and not for others than to just not redirect users at all?
We will do a user testing soon but we would still want to come up with the best UX for now as the sales team would be demo-ing the product and we don't want to confuse/annoy potential clients.