I've used quite a lot of forms creation software over the years and I thought I'd share some of the biggest features that I (and our customers) have come to expect from tools that let you build online forms.
First, some background....Undoubtedly, the oldest online software tools for websites fall in three categories: Content Management Systems (CMS), Ecommerce and Website Analytics. While these three categories have infinitely matured, a missing piece continued to stay in its adolescence – Forms creation applications.
CMS and Ecommerce applications allow you to create pages and products for a broad audience. With these tools, you author content once and through marketing channels, the content is distributed to potentially hundreds of thousands of viewers. But what about customer feedback? What about reversing this concept and allowing the customer to easily provide feedback to you?
Sure, building forms on the web has existed almost since day one of the Internet (in fact , a shopping cart is a form itself allowing a visitor to submit an order), but the EASE of form creation is what’s been missing.
Online Forms Software – a toolset that SHOULD allow you to easily create and distribute forms and report on feedback from you customer.
Most forms have the following features:- Public Interface – the webpage that allows a vistor to submit a form
- Email Functionality – Autorespond to the visitor and send your admin an email
- Database – Receive and store the form submission
- Secure Admin Site – Allow your administrators to login and see submissions
- Reporting – Report, graph and/or Export your submissions
The requirements above are what has made the form creation process too difficult and advanced in the past. The image below explains this process even more clearly:
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Following this 13 step process (and that's with NO revisions or bugs), even the simplest of forms could take 4-8 hours to develop resulting in hundreds of dollars when using a professional web development firm.
Luckily there are a number of online forms creation software on the market. Here’s what you should look for:
1. Drag and drop Simplicity – When you need customer feedback, you need it now. With drag and drop, creating your form should be as easy as pulling fields from a library and dropping on your page.
2. Layouts & Templates – Forms quickly get complex. You need layout options including multiple columns and rows to create the best user experience. Additionally, branding is always important. Your software must allow for custom templates to 100% accommodate your branding and website design.
3. Branching & Dependencies – Getting customer feedback must be as simple as possible because often your when your customers want to provide feedback, it may likely be negative. Considering this, why force your customer to drag through a ton of fields that aren’t relevant to them (have you ever seen a field labeled “If yes, please explain……”. Shouldn’t the form KNOW if you said “yes”?)? Branching and dependencies allow you to create customize paths down your form presenting only relevant questions to your visitor.
4. Advanced Functionality – Forms are commonly more than just textboxes and dropdowns. Sometimes you need to submit hidden field values, show summary data with calculated fields, or hide your submit button until a condition is met. Can your forms software handle your advanced needs?
5. Customizable Email Auto-Responders – You must be able to design auto-responders for your visitor and your administrator with point and click simplicity. Additionally, you need to be able to personalize these emails to allow you to insert values submitted from the form.
6. APIs & Exports – Getting Data Out - Most often you will desire to further analyze form submissions in another application such as: Microsoft Excel, your CRM system or similar applications. Can you easily export into a variety of industry standard formats? Better yet, can you have your forms software automatically submit electronic data to other software systems without your manual assistance?
7. Powerful, Flexible Analytics – Forms submissions are worthless without reporting on and understanding the data. Your forms software must allow you to create dashboard reports to analyze data in real-time in a variety of ways. The best form software will allow real-time drag and drop grouping, subtotaling, dyanmic charting and custom dashboards by each user.
8. Low Learning Curve – An emerging trend is simplicity in web application design. Out of the box, is your forms software immediately understandable?...Easy and pleasant to use? Can you learn by watching videos rather than reading a 150 page manual? Your forms software shouldn’t require a training manual.
I hope these eight features help simplify your evaluation process of your forms software.
Ariamedia is the creator of Conductor TouchPoint, one of the most powerful forms software applications available. Learn more about Conductor TouchPoint at http://www.ariamedia.com/products/touchpoint.
Labels: Conductor TouchPoint, Forms Software
