Archive for the ‘form handler’ Category
FormSmarts Soon in More Languages
We’ve started to translate FormSmarts’ form handler into other languages. When the international version is released, form users will see instructions, error messages, and confirmation messages in their preferred language.
International form owners will welcome this move, but not only them.
- FormSmarts users with international websites will be able to create forms in English, while making them available to an international audience without any extra efforts;
- a U.S. user with a preferred language set to Spanish in his browser will see messages in that language.
Note that the internationalization in progress only applies to the form processor at this time. At the rate we introduce new features to the form builder, we wouldn’t be able to keep translations in sync.
We’ve already emailed international users to ask anyone able and willing to translate FormSmarts into their own language to sign up. If you would like to contribute but didn’t get the email, please register here.
Update: We would like to thank all the users who have already volunteered to translate FormSmarts into their language. Our most wanted languages are currently:
Chinese (Simplified) / 中文 (简体)- Japanese / 日本語
Russian / русский- Italian / italiano
- Polish / polski
- Korean / 한국어
Posted on September 16th, 2008 in form handler.
No Comments »
Tags: international, upcoming
Stored Form Results
Whenever someone uses one of your forms, we email you the form submission straight away. That is, at this time, the only way we support for you to access form results.
That’s great if you need to collect time-sensitive information that needs to be processed individually. For example, for contact forms or order forms.
For most individuals and small businesses, their email account is where data is safest. Free email services like Gmail or Yahoo give you reliable data storage, that’s an advantage that is often overlooked.
But sometimes what you want is really to collect form data, store it somewhere, and use it later. That’s what you need for medium and large scale surveys, registration forms, and the likes.
Stored form results is the next big thing coming up on FormSmarts.
What Will Change with Stored Form Results?
When this feature becomes available, you’ll have the option to store form submissions on FormSmarts. You’ll then be able to download them, export them to Microsoft Excel, get them emailed to you weekly, or get them via a private RSS feed.
Stored Form Results will only be available to FormSmarts Pro customers. Users of the free service can however get a free upgrade to FormSmarts Pro if they earn enough SmartsPoints, FormSmarts’ reward scheme.
Anything to Say?
We’re open to suggestions about other ways to let users retrieve stored form data.
Posted on August 5th, 2008 in form handler.
2 Comments »
Tags: stored form results, upcoming
Date Type & Datepicker
Anyone using a standard text field for dates should upgrade to the new date type.
Fields with the date type show as a text box, with a datepicker poping up when the field is selected. A datepicker allows users to input dates in an intuitive and interactive way, therefore reducing the risk of errors.
Date Format
Another reason for using a datepicker is to alleviate the date format problem. Because of date formatting differences, 12/07/2008 means December 7th in the U.S., but July 12th in Europe. Although we initially thought of adopting the ISO/W3C date format “yyyy-mm-dd”, we eventually preferred the U.S. format “mm/dd/yyyy”. That is, until we release an internationalized version of FormSmarts.
Because users don’t interact directly with the text field (unless they want to), but rather with the datepicker, they don’t have to be aware of date formatting issues.
To avoid any misunderstandings, dates are displayed as Sunday July 20, 2008.
Any questions or comments? Leave a reply. We are in particular interested in feedback from non U.S. users.
Posted on July 20th, 2008 in form handler.
2 Comments »
Tags: email notification, form handler, input field, international, web forms
Geolocalized Country Selection Field
We’re going to add over the week-end two new input field types: country, and date. You should upgrade any web forms currently using a standard text field for country or date to the new types.
When to Use the Country Type
Choose the country type whenever you want to show on a form a dropdown list with the 280 odd ISO country names.
Visitor Country Selected by Default
A country list field is typically used to ask the visitor about his/her country of residence. You’ve certainly already experienced the frustration of having to search for your country in a long list each time you fill out a form. At FormSmarts, we want to save time to everyone, so the visitor’s country is automatically selected by default.
That way, users only have to change the selection if the question asks them about a country different from their country of residence. For example, “Where did you travel last time you went abroad?”
Reducing the time needed to fill a form helps reduce form abandonment.
Any questions or comments? Leave a reply.
P.S. We’ll present the date type in another post.
Posted on July 17th, 2008 in form handler.
No Comments »
Tags: form handler, geolocalization, input field, web forms
Why Does Submitting a Form Require Two Steps?
Many form processors let visitors submit a form in only one step: users fill in the form, and are done after pressing the submit button. With FormSmarts, there is an extra confirmation step, during which users are invited to review and confirm the information submitted. There are two strong reasons why we added the confirmation step.
The first reason is quality. FormSmarts is typically used for transaction where the information submitted is important. Important because the information collected is intended to be read by humans, rather than machines. Important because this information is often intended to be acted upon.
By allowing users to review and modify their submission, we increase the accuracy of the information you get in the end.
Form users understand that, and it increases their confidence that you value the information they are sending you. Most of times, confirmation will only add a few seconds to the whole transaction.
The second reason is security and usability. Many form submissions are automated, or even manual spamming attempts, known as form spam or comment spam.
When a user presses the submit button, a lot more happens on the server than you may suspect. If we spot a likely spamming attempt, we’ll ask the user to complete one or more tests (e.g. CAPTCHA test) on the confirmation page. But in the same time, the bulk of users will never be asked to waste time on a CAPTCHA test.
Posted on April 23rd, 2008 in form handler.
No Comments »
Tags: captcha, form handler, form spam, usability
