Word docs or web forms?
One significant priority for many websites is to gather information. Both corporations and non-profits typically have a need to create forms for their constituents to fill out and return, such as surveys, application forms, and registration forms.
A disturbing trend that I still see with many organizations is the usage of Microsoft Word documents as a method of distributing forms.
Compared to web forms, Word documents have a number of disadvantages when used as forms. For this reason, web forms are a much better way to collect data. A web form is a form that is accessible online, usually as part of your website, that allows your constituents to fill in data directly online. Web forms have a number of advantages over Word documents.
1. Web forms convert better than Word forms. The easier it is for someone to complete a task, the more likely that person is to do it, which means a higher rate of conversion. If a form is distributed as a Word document, then the user must download the document, open it up in Word, fill out the form, save the form, and then email it back to someone. This is five separate steps. Alternatively, if a web form is used, all the user has to do is fill out the form and click "submit" and the process is complete. If you want people to actually fill out your form, decreasing the steps required to do it will help.
2. Web forms are more accessible to Mac users. StatCounter Global Stats estimates that approximately 15% of computer users in the U.S. are Mac users as of February 2011. This number is growing every day. While Microsoft Word is available on the Mac, it is also expensive and unnecessary. For this reason, many Mac owners use Apple Pages or Google Docs for document management. While both of these applications can open Word documents, they typically cannot accurately render the layout the same way Microsoft Word can, which means that forms typically end up looking jumbled and messy. Even if they do end up rendering correctly, there are still extra steps to convert it back and forth between document formats. Hopefully, it's easy to see why Mac users hate Word documents. All of these problems go away with a nice, clean, web form.
3. Web forms are more accessible to everybody. Even Window users like web forms better than Word documents because they are more accessible in a variety of situations. While your constituents may be able to open up a Word document from a computer, what about on an iPad or a mobile device? Blackberry, iPhone, and Droid users will not be able to use your form if it's a Word document, which means a potentially lost opportunity to collect data. If your form is available online as a web form, however, your constituents can fill it out from any device with a web browser, including mobile devices. It's even more user-friendly with a mobile version of your website.
4. Web forms create more consistent data. Letting someone download a Word document means that they now have the ability to edit it and manipulate the format. This means the form that gets returned can end up getting messy or mis-formatted depending on what the user did with it. This can cause difficulty for the person reading the forms and collecting data. A web form, however, will ensure that all the information that gets submitted will get sent in a consistent format which makes it much easier to analyze.
5. Web forms allow more flexible reporting. Getting a Word document back as a form means that the only way to analyze the data is basically to manually review the forms one by one. However, a web form allows information to be collected in a database, which then allows more complex analysis via spreadsheets or other applications. The data consistency facilitated by a web form makes analysis much more efficient. It also means the information can be formatted in a variety of ways, which means it is more flexible for reporting and internal distribution.
As you can see, web forms have significant advantages over Word documents. They are more user-friendly, accessible, and efficient and result in cleaner data. If your website is built on a modern Content Management System, building web forms should be a snap. Deploying them as web forms should actually be quicker than building them in Word.
The next time you have a form to create, try making a web form rather than a Word document. Your constituents will thank you.
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