A license key form is the easiest way to initially collect the key from your end user. These forms should be intuitive and easy to use for an ideal end user experience.
Form Best Practices #
For technical details on creating forms, see our documentation on form building in various languages. There are also several code examples you can build off of.
No matter what language your form is built in, a simple input where the key will go and a submit button is all you need. Anything beyond this simple design is up to you.
You could collect information at the same time the key is checked and store that information in a local file or database. An example might include asking a user for their birthday or full name.
However, KISS really applies here. Users don’t want to fill out tedious forms, so ask as little as you need or prefill the form fields with available information you already have, like their billing email or username.
Think Of The User Experience #
End users are accustomed to adding license keys to newly bought software and as long as you design a nice form they likely won’t have any issues. Adding keys to a simple and clean form is ubiquitous to modern digital purchases.
Keep your forms simple and avoid creating forms with a wall of inputs with multiple questions and options to choose from….especially if they already answers most of these questions during checkout.
Keeping your license key forms simple and clean improves customer satisfaction. If you must collect more information prefill as much as you can, or consider only collecting the data you must have at installation and ask for more info later after the user has spent some time inside your app.
This makes the end user feel like the installation process is smooth and efficient.