1. The information the customer must provide is too intimidating or complicated to request all of it from a single page.
   
   • The Wizard is an especially good choice if we want to entice the customer to do or try something.
2. Different information is needed according to early choices the customer makes.  The early choices can determine which wizard pages are shown later.
   
   • Also consider using a single page and having one choice at the top of the page determine what is displayed at the bottom.
3. The requested information can be broken up into pages that are suitable to be worked with one at a time, so the customer rarely needs to go back to a previous page.
4. The customer is not in a blazing hurry, and it's unlikely that the same customer will have to do it over and over.
   
   • Note:  Wizards are friendly, allowing the customer to focus on one part of the task at a time, but they also require more interactions and server trips.  Some sites are moving to a smaller number of larger pages, or even a single page, for placing orders.

Normally, wizards are used for initial creation of objects, and revisions made later are done another way, such as tabbed panels or a large page.  However, this is not required, and wizards may be used for revisions as well, especially if there are not too many steps or changes are rare.

1. All four buttons are always present, but the ones that are not applicable are disabled.
   Exception:  The Cancel button is not required, but it can be useful if there are a lot of steps.
2. The Cancel button cancels the wizard and returns to the page that invoked the wizard, the one from which the first step was invoked.  If significant information will be lost, confirmation is required.
   Example:  "Are you sure you want to cancel this registration and discard your work?"
   Note:  Normally, leaving the wizard causes all entered data to be lost, but this is not required.
   See also:  Confirmation of Cancel by Navigating Away
3. The progress bar at the top is not required, but is often very useful.  In cases where the number of steps in wizard changes according to the customer's choices, progress information may not be useful.
4. Clicking an item on the progress bar takes the customer to that page, when practical.  Many wizards will let you jump back, but not always jump forward.
5. Clicking Previous and Next does not cause information to be lost.  Whenever you return to a page, the content of that page is as you left it, provided you have not left the wizard.

Note:  Be careful about using a Wizard with Tabbed Panels inside of it.  Customers may think that the Previous and Next buttons apply to the tabs instead of the Wizard steps.  Consider making each tab a step in the wizard, or using a Collapsible Panel inside the wizard, instead of a Tabbed Panel.