Posts Tagged ‘howto’
How to Customize the Look of Your Forms with CSS
The online form builder allows you to easily change the layout and colors of your forms when these are embedded into your website. This article discusses how to further customize the look of your online forms by providing your own CSS stylesheet. You can create one (or more) CSS stylesheet for each form.
Disclaimer
The feature discussed in this article is UNOFFICIAL. It is NOT PART OF ANY FORMSMARTS COMMERCIAL OFFERS and we do not provide direct support for it. Feel free to post questions at the bottom of this page. Changing the layout of a form may prevent it to display consistently across browsers.
Verify Your Site & Upload a Logo
To be able to use your own CSS stylesheet, your first need to verify your site and upload a site logo. Uploading a logo creates a website profile on FormSmarts and will allow you to provide your own CSS stylesheet. The logo will be shown on the standalone version of your forms and also on PayPal if you’re using Advanced Payment Integration.
Create a CSS Stylesheet
The CSS code in your stylesheet will be loaded after the default FormSmarts CSS, so any instructions specified in it will override the default. We give a few examples of customizations in the Example section below. More will follow.
Update the Embed Code on Your Site
In the HTML snippet given in the Form Publishing Info screen of the form creator, change the query string portion of the URL from mode=embed&lay=1 to mode=embed&lay=1&style=css/form.css, where css/form.css is the path to the CSS file relative to the root of your website. For example, if your website’s URL is http://www.example.com, the CSS file should be at http://www.example.com/css/form.css.
CSS Styling Examples
Changing the Font and Color of Headings
h2{
font-family:serif;
font-size:14px;
color:orange;
}
Changing the Layout of a Form to Multiple Columns
Logical sections defined by headings can be made into separate columns using the following CSS code and changing the iframe width accordingly.
#section_1{
width:350px;
float:left;
}
#section_2{
width:350px;
float:right;
}
Posted on November 21st, 2011 in form builder.
14 Comments »
Tags: embed, form design, howto, usability, widget
How to Lay Out Form Input Fields
Your goal as a web publisher is maximize the number of (legitimate) respondents to your forms. A first step towards this goal is to lay out your forms in a way that is intuitive to users, makes forms faster to fill in, and minimizes form validation errors.
It follows four points you should consider when designing a web form:
- choose the most appropriate input field widget for the situation
- group fields together within logical sections
- place multi-line text input fields (textarea in HTML) towards the bottom of the form
- group optional fields together at the bottom of the form
The first point is discussed in details in FormSmarts documentation.
The second point commends, for example, that when you ask people about their contact details, you group all relevant fields (first name, last name, email,…) together. We found that most form designers tend to do that right. The form builder will in the future allow users to define different logical (and visual) sections within web forms.
Multi-line text input fields obviously tend to take longer to fill in than other input fields. They require more effort, thinking and typing, so place them after other fields. Visitors will be less inclined to abandon the form altogether if they have already spent time completing the first part of the form.
The last point is about grouping optional fields together at the bottom of the form. This allows people to quickly review the remaining questions, and skip the fields they don’t want to fill in or don’t apply to them. This may of course conflict with grouping fields within logical sections. In that case, place optional fields at the end of each logical section.
We’ve now enabled comments, and we warmly welcome your thoughts and feedback about this post. if you’re reading this by email, just click on the title to post a reply.
Posted on June 29th, 2008 in HTML form.
4 Comments »
Tags: form builder, form design, howto, input field, web forms
How to Embed a Form Into Your Site
Linking or Embedding?
FormSmarts supports two ways to integrate a form into your website or blog: linking and embedding. Embedding lets you place the form on your site alongside other content. Linking gives your form its own separate web page. Both have advantages and disadvantages. Many users think embedding the form into their site gives them more control. That’s far from always being the best option.
Embed a Form When…
- the web form is short — 10-15 input fields maximum
- it is self comprehensible and form filling instructions are not needed
Mailing list signup forms and simple contact forms work well embedded.
Link To a Form When…
- the form is long or complex
- the form is accessed both by web visitors and via a mailing list
- the form in intended for a large audience, that may be using a wide range of browsers and devices
- your audience includes mobile phone users
- you expect a large number of form submissions
Event registration forms and survey forms may perform better when accessed buy URL on their own page.
- forms accessed by URL load faster and are more scalable
- they are statistically more reliable
- they offer more flexibility
- there are no sizing issues
A word of wisdom: Resist the temptation to systematically embed web forms on your site for irrational reasons “because it gives you more (apparent) control”. Some web forms perform better on their own page.
Placing the Embedding Code On Your Site
To embed a form into your website, visit the Forms tab, and click Embed to see the form code.
Copy the HTML code, then paste it somewhere in the HTML source of the
host page on your website or blog. If you’re using an online service like Blogger, that’s
all you have to do. Otherwise, you need to publish the page to your web server.
A word of warning: do not try to save the form as an HTML page, and publish that page. This will not work. You must paste the code exactly as given. Do not attempt to alter, remove, or hide the mention “web form by FormSmarts”, or the link to our Privacy Policy. This would be a breach of our Terms of Use, and your account would risk to be terminated without notice.
Changing a Form, Once the Code Is on Your Site
Any changes you make to a form using the form builder will show up straight away on your website. You do not need to update the embedding code. However, as a result of adding more fields, or changing a text box to a larger text area, the frame containing the form may no longer be high enough to fit the form. You will then need to re-publish the embedding code to your site. See the section about Form Sizing below.
Customizing Your Form
You can customize several aspects of your forms in the Form Details screen of your account.
Web Form Sizing
Why Is There Extra Space at the Bottom of the Form?
Forms are contained within an HTML frame (“iframe” for geeks). The frame has a fixed size, which is computed for each form, based on several factors, like the number and type of fields used, and the form layout chosen.
It is necessary to leave room at the bottom of the form for error messages that may need to be displayed during a form submission. That’s the reason for the extra space at the bottom of a form.
Manually Changing Form Height and Width
You can change the size of a web form widget by editing the value of the height and width attributes in the HTML snippet (a.k.a. form embed code) given by the form builder.
We do not recommend changing the height of forms. If you do, remember to allow extra space at the bottom of the form, as discussed in the previous section.
The width of embedded web forms can be resized down to 360px without side-effects, and should degrade well beyond that.
How Do I Get Rid of the Vertical Scrollbar
With time, you may need to add more fields to your forms, but forget to refresh the form HTML code on your site. Since the frame height is hard-coded into the code on your website, the form may no longer fit into the frame, and a vertical scrollbar will then appear. That is not desirable on a usability standpoint, so you are advised to update the code on your site whenever you add new fields, or change a text box to a text area.
Only One Form Per Page
It is against our terms of service to embed more than one form in a single web page.
Embed a Form to a Facebook Fan Page
The easiest way to add a form to a Facebook page is to use the FormSmarts URL that comes with each form. Click on the URL link in the Forms Tab of the form builder to show form URLs instead of embedding code. You may also embed the form into your Facebook page using an FBML Box. See instructions to embed a form to Facebook. Feel free to post your questions in the relevant thread of our forum on FormSmarts’ Facebook page if you need help.
Posted on May 21st, 2008 in HTML form.
29 Comments »
Tags: embed, facebook, form builder, howto, web forms, widget
How to Advertise Your Form to a Mailing List
A number of users take advantage of our flexible web form platform to
advertise a FormSmarts-hosted survey form or event registration form by
email.
There are a few things to keep in mind if you wish to include a form URL
in a newsletter or mailing campaign:
- as specified in the terms of use, FormSmarts only allows advertising of a form URL by email for strict opt-in mailing lists
- you must be a verified form owner
- you may only reference the form by including its URL, and must not attempt to embed the form in an HTML email
If you intend to email more than 1,000 subscribers, ask for a permission beforehand. We may ask you to schedule your mailing at a specific time if the expected click-stream is high.
When contacting FormSmarts, please indicate:
- the rough number of subscribers of your list
- whether this is a one off or recurring mailing
- the date/time of your mailing(s)
- whether advertising the form is the main purpose of the mail
- whether you offer any incentives for form submissions
This information will help us estimate the server load to expect.
Posted on May 13th, 2008 in HTML form.
No Comments »
Tags: howto, mailing, web forms
Building Successful Web Forms, Part 1
Web forms play a key role for visitor (and customer) interaction on many
sites. However, many web designers don’t realize that there may be huge
differences in form abandonment ratio, depending on how well the form is
designed. In this post and follow ups, we’ll give you some tips to help
you make your web forms an effective communication channel.
Always provide form filling instructions.
Don’t assume that all of your visitors will understand how to submit a form without further explanation. Short and clear form filling instructions can reduce form abandonment, and increase the quality of the information collected.
- include a call to action phrase like “Please fill out this form to
contact XYZ” - indicate the purpose of the form and the recipient of the information collected
- if applicable, confirm that you will reply, and give an indication of the time frame
Select the correct data type for each input field.
Because of necessary form validation, choosing and incorrect data type may prevent a form user from submitting valid information. When this happens, it is likely to lead to form abandonment.
For example, if you specify that a form field can only contain a Number, it may not work for a phone number. 1233456789 will work, but not 123-345-6789. So use
the Phone type instead. In many cases, the form builder will
pre-select a type for you, but not always. Read
more about selecting an input field data type in the form builder documentation.
Choose the most appropriate input field widget.
Don’t restrict yourself to text boxes and drop-down lists. Take advantage of the full range of HTML form fields with radio buttons and checkboxes. Learn when to use each one.
Using a drop-down list for a yes/no question will slow down the form user, and increase the chances (s)he gives up. Use radio buttons instead. Read tips about choosing the best input field widget in the form builder documentation.
Brand your forms for instant visual recognition.
Always brand your web forms with your own logo. This helps visitors
recognize at first sight who they are about to send information to.
Posted on May 6th, 2008 in HTML form.
No Comments »
Tags: form builder, form design, howto, input field, web forms
New Web Form Creator Demo Video Available
We’ve added a new demonstration video to help new FormSmarts users get started. The video is on YouTube, and a higher quality version is available for download form the Internet Archive.
Posted on March 25th, 2008 in form builder.
1 Comment »
Tags: howto, HTML form, video tutorial
Tips for Web Form Users with Non-English Language Websites
Many users in non-English speaking countries now use FormSmarts, so we thought we would post a few recommendations for them.
When building your forms with the form creator, use the text data type for any fields that may contain non-English characters, such as the accented characters found in many European languages.
Note that non-European languages like Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese and Russian are not supported at this time.
As you know, FormSmarts form handler is not a simple form to email processor script like FormMail. Each and every web form submission is analyzed in real time, and the user may be asked to complete a challenge if we suspect a form spam attempt. Although anyone capable of reading elementary English should be able to understand what is expected from him/her in that context, this is something you may have to take into account when designing your web forms. You could for example warn users in the form filling instructions.
If you need help, we provide limited support in French, German, and Chinese (as well as English, of course.) You can write us in any of those languages, but we will only reply in English.
Posted on March 11th, 2008 in form handler.
No Comments »
Tags: howto, international, web forms
Creating a Simple Contact Form with FormSmarts: Watch the Video
If you are here wondering how long it would take you to build a fully functional contact form with FormSmarts, get the video from Youtube or Dailymotion.
It’s a user-contributed video (thanks Dan), so don’t expect professional making and voiceover. If you can do better, let us know.
Posted on December 16th, 2007 in HTML form.
No Comments »
Tags: contact form, howto, video tutorial
Choosing a Good Web Form Title
Most visitors will notice that they are submitting a form not from your website, but from FormSmarts.com. For users to be confident they are sending information to the right person, include your name or website name in the form title.
For example, “Contact Edgar Poe” is a more informative and useful title than “Contact Form”.
Posted on December 15th, 2007 in form builder.
No Comments »
Tags: howto, usability, web forms
Adding Form Filling Instructions to Your Web Forms
You can now specify Form Filling Instructions for your web forms. Although this field is optional, we encourage you to make use of it. It will help your visitors complete the form more efficiently, and also help you build trust with them. Here are some information you may want to place in the Form Filling Instructions.
Remind users of the purpose of the form to avoid people submitting the wrong form.
Precise the intended content of particular fields. This will help your visitors complete the form accurately and efficiently.
State for which purposes you will use the data submitted, and whether the data will be shared with a third party. This is particularly important if you collect email addresses and other personally identifying information. People are often concerned about their privacy when submitting forms, so having a clear privacy policy will help build trust with your users.
Include the name of your website, so visitors can be confident they are contacting the right person or organization.
Whenever relevant, give an estimated response time, e.g. “we normally reply within 2 working days”.
Posted on December 6th, 2007 in form builder.
6 Comments »
Tags: form design, howto, privacy, usability, web forms