Tool Tuesday features digital tools I actually use and recommend to my clients. No one pays me to say these things. I just like sharing.
CONFESSION: I know enough HTML to get into trouble, deep trouble. And forms totally confound me.
Thankfully, a few years ago I found Wufoo.
Wufoo makes collecting information on the Internet easy. All the little bits that drive you nuts about forms – making it work on all platforms, error correcting, confirmation pages and emails, and so much more – are all handled beautifully. You don’t need to know html or style sheets to make an awesome form that does what you want it to do.
You can build your own form from scratch using the Form Builder, which looks like this…
Or choose a base form from Wufoo’s huge Form Gallery, which includes really solid forms for:
- Contact
- Surveys
- Invitations
- Registrations
- Online orders
- Volunteer registration
- Church visitors
- Complaints
Here’s a quick peek at the Registrations category of the Form Gallery:
I started using Wufoo because I found the contact forms and modules in WordPress, Drupal and Joomla were remarkably rigid. Wufoo let me customize to my heart’s content and embed the form right back into a website.
PRICING
A basic account – 1 user, 3 forms, 10 fields and 100 entries – is free. The next level of account is only $14.95/month, and you can upgrade, downgrade or cancel at any time. Click here for Wufoo pricing.
6 WUFOO BELLS & WHISTLES I LOVE
- Host your form on Wufoo or embed a snippet of code on your website
- Integrates with PayPal, Google Checkout and Authorize.net for payment processing
- Reports
- Notifications
- Adding social media sharing buttons to a form’s confirmation landing page
- Integrates with MailChimp, Twitter and other web apps
3 PEARLS OF WISDOM
- Test Your Form, with friends, more than once…don’t be lazy (conversely, tell someone politely when you see a mistake on their form)
- Don’t Ask For More Data Than You Will Use, or people get cranky and leave
- Make it Work, use those confirmation emails and confirmation pages to engage people more deeply (ask them to share, thank them profusely, invite them to learn more on your site)
Now go forth and collect info with ease and confidence – you are form genius!
