How to Add Collapsible Info to WordPress Forms for Better User Experience

A collapsible section is a group of form fields tucked behind a clickable header. Users see the section title. They click. Fields slide open. They fill them in. Simple.

It’s also called an accordion section in some plugins. The technical name behind the behavior is progressive disclosure, which is a UX principle that says: show people only what they need to see right now. Everything else stays one click away.

Three patterns get confused often:

• Collapsible (accordion): sections expand and collapse vertically on click
• Tabs: sections switch horizontally, only one visible at a time
• Multi step: sections appear on separate pages with next and back buttons

All three reduce perceived form length. Collapsible is the lightest touch and the easiest to add. That’s usually where you start.

Fluent Forms makes this almost embarrassingly easy. Their Section Break field has accordion behavior built right in.

Steps:

• Open your form in the editor
• Drag a Section Break field where you want the accordion to start
• In the field settings, toggle the section type to Accordion
• Add an icon and a header title
• Drop the fields that should sit inside that section beneath it
• Repeat for each new collapsible block

The Pro version unlocks tab style alongside accordion, plus conditional logic that can auto open a section based on a previous answer. Useful for forms that branch.

Watch out for: the default styling looks plain. Spend ten minutes in the styler tab to match your brand colors. A generic accordion looks like a placeholder and visitors notice.

Formidable takes a similar approach. Their Section field sits in the layout group of the form builder, and the collapsible toggle is one checkbox away.

Add a Section field, click into its settings, scroll to Display Options, and check Collapsible. Choose whether it starts open or closed by default. Save the form.

Formidable’s Lite version supports this, which makes it the cheapest entry point if you’re starting from zero. The Pro upgrade adds conditional logic for showing or hiding sections based on previous answers.

One quirk: Formidable lets you nest a section inside another section. Don’t. Nested accordions confuse users and look like a bug. Keep the hierarchy flat.

Here’s the honest part. WPForms doesn’t have a native collapsible section field the way Fluent and Formidable do. If you’re already paying for WPForms, you’ve got two real options.

Option A: use the Page Break field for a multi step form. It isn’t accordion behavior, but it solves the same problem of perceived form length. Visitors only see one section at a time, with next and back navigation.

Option B: drop in an HTML field and write your own accordion markup using the native <details> and <summary> tags. Style it with custom CSS. This works, but the fields inside still submit through WPForms normally, so nothing breaks on the backend.

If accordion behavior is non negotiable for your project, Fluent or Formidable wins on cost and setup time. WPForms is excellent at a lot of things. This isn’t one of them.

Gravity Forms ships with a Section Break field, but the field doesn’t collapse on its own. You need a little JavaScript to make it behave like an accordion.

Add a Section Break field for each block. Give each one a CSS class like collapsible-section in the field’s advanced settings. Then add this snippet to your theme’s custom JS or a code snippets plugin:

document.querySelectorAll('.collapsible-section').forEach(s => { s.style.cursor='pointer'; s.addEventListener('click', () => s.classList.toggle('open')); });

Then add CSS that hides the fields below each section by default and shows them when the parent has the open class. About fifteen lines of CSS total.

More work than Fluent or Formidable. But Gravity Forms shops usually have a developer on call anyway. If you don’t, you can hire WordPress developers for short engagements like this one. It’s typically a fifteen minute job for someone who’s done it before.

If you don’t want to pay for a Pro plan and you’re comfortable with the block editor, native HTML handles this without a single plugin add on.

The <details> and <summary> elements are built into every modern browser. They give you an accordion for free.

In the block editor, add a Custom HTML block above your form and paste:

<details><summary>Optional Information</summary><p>Helper text or form notes go here.</p></details>

For form fields themselves, wrap them with the same pattern using the form plugin’s HTML field. Add a few lines of CSS to remove the default browser triangle and replace it with a chevron icon. Done.

This approach won’t give you the polish of a paid plugin. But for a side project or a quick test, it’s free and works on every browser, including mobile Safari.

Adding the accordion is the easy half. The hard half is making sure it actually helps people finish the form instead of confusing them. This is where most teams need real conversion rate optimization thinking, not just plugin settings.

A few rules I’ve watched work across hundreds of real forms:

• Section headers should describe what’s inside. “Personal Details” beats “Section 1”. Be specific.
• Show a field count next to each header. “Contact Info (4 fields)” tells visitors what they’re in for. Reduces drop offs.
• Never collapse a section with required fields by default. Users miss them and get submission errors. Errors kill trust faster than long forms.
• Pick one expand icon and stick with it. Plus and minus, or chevron up and down. Not both. Not on the same form.
• Keep the animation under 300 milliseconds. Anything slower feels sluggish, especially on mobile.
• Save partial input. If a user accidentally collapses a half filled section, the data should still be there when they reopen it. Most plugins do this by default. Test it anyway.

One pattern that backfires: auto collapsing a section after the user finishes filling it. Feels clever in theory. Confuses users in practice because they lose the ability to review what they entered. Leave completed sections open.

Most form tutorials never mention this. They should. A form that screen readers can’t navigate is a form that fails ADA compliance, and that’s a legal risk in plenty of jurisdictions.

If you’re building the accordion yourself, your section headers need ARIA attributes:

• aria-expanded set to true or false depending on state
• aria-controls pointing to the ID of the content panel
• role="button" on the header element so screen readers announce it correctly

Keyboard users need Tab to focus the header and Enter or Space to toggle it. A visible focus ring is non negotiable. Strip it out for aesthetics and you’ve broken your form for thousands of people who navigate without a mouse.

Fluent Forms and Formidable handle most of this automatically. Custom builds need testing. Run NVDA or VoiceOver across your form before you call it done. Five minutes that saves you a lawsuit.

A short list of traps that show up over and over on client audits. Most of these overlap with broader UX mistakes that kill conversions, but a few are specific to collapsible forms:

1. Burying the submit button inside a collapsed section. Visitors hit the bottom of the form, see no button, and bounce. Always keep submit visible.
2. Using vague headers like “More Info” or “Additional Details”. Specific labels convert better.
3. Forgetting to test on mobile Safari. iOS handles the <details> element slightly differently and your styling can break in ways desktop never reveals.
4. Not tracking which sections users actually open. Without GA4 event tracking on the toggle, you have no data to optimize. Add it from day one.
5. Stacking three or more accordion sections deep. Long forms with too many collapsed blocks feel hidden. Visitors stop trusting that they’ve seen everything.

If your form fails on any of these and your conversion rate is suffering, fix the obvious ones before testing fancier optimizations.

Save this and run through it before publishing any new form with collapsible sections:

• Pick the plugin or method that matches your form length and budget
• Write specific section headers with field counts
• Keep required fields visible by default
• Test on Chrome, Firefox, and mobile Safari
• Verify keyboard navigation and screen reader output
• Add GA4 event tracking on every section toggle
• Check INP and page speed scores after adding the form
• Run an A/B test against your current form for at least 14 days
• Review drop off data weekly and adjust section labels accordingly

Most teams skip three or four of these and wonder why the new form performs about the same as the old one. Don’t skip.