Web Expression Designs - Frequently Asked Questions

What are Web forms?

A Web form is a question or series of questions in a webpage that allow a user to enter information, which is then processed by a program and can be sent by e-mail. It is usually presented by means of form elements, such as a textbox, select menu, checkbox, etc.

The advantage of this is that you can ask users exactly what you want instead of merely giving them an e-mail link – you have much more control over the information provided and it's more personalized than a simple link.

Web forms are a great means for giving your viewers or customers an easy way to contact you and to promote your website and products or services. Although they are most commonly used for general inquiries, they can also be used for order forms, surveys and questionnaires, to promote your website by having viewers send a message to their friends, or really almost any purpose that involves communication with your visitors.

What are the advantages of this service?

Creating a response form for your website usually involves a few days' turn around time from a developer, and typically costs a minimum of a couple hundred dollars. In addition, there are several technical requirements including access to a sendmail program on the server on which your site is hosted. None of that is necessary with our service:

		Set up a working form in just a few minutes;
		Select from a variety of colors and styles to match your website;
		No programming required; you'll be provided with just a few lines of code to add to your webpage;
		You can include this code in as many pages as you want at no extra cost;
		The forms will work on any website, including those with no access to mailer programs (it automatically uses ours to forward the e-mail messages, behind the scenes);
		Your form can be displayed directly in your webpage, or appear in a pop-up window when your visitors click a button or text link;
		The forms are smart enough to prevent viewers from submitting until they fill in all the information you decide is required – and they automatically check for valid e-mail addresses and phone number area codes;
		For "Create Your Own" forms, log in any time to update your questions – the changes will instantly be reflected on your website;
		When you update your questions, there's no need to change the code on your webpage (unless you select different options for the form to be displayed in a pop-up window);
		An almost unlimited number of different forms is possible – use yours to receive feedback, take orders, promote your website, provide questionnaires, or for almost any purpose that involves communication with your visitors;
		You can also change the e-mail recipient or other information at any time;
		Create your own "Thank You" page, or use ours (it automatically appears in the same style as your form);
		Discounts are available for multiple different forms;
		In many cases we can accommodate special requests – let us know what you need.

What is JavaScript?

JavaScript is a "client-side" programming language, which means it's run by the visitor's Web browser, rather than the server on which the site is hosted (a "server-side" language). Because it is run by a browser, it's uniquely suited to interacting directly with viewers through Web forms – it can process input and perform tasks without having to refer to the server and jump to additional pages. For example, form validation (checking a form to make sure certain information has been entered, or has been entered in the right way).

Some examples of JavaScript working with forms can be found on our function page, but there are also many other uses – such as "lighting up" buttons when the mouse is moved over them, or displaying one of several images based on a user's preferences.

Can we accept credit card or other financial information securely?

Yes, but instead of being sent directly by e-mail, the order information would be forwarded to a third party service such as PayPal which would then handle the billing details. A custom form would be required for this – we do not provide shopping carts, secure certificates, or other e-commerce related software.

It is usually relatively expensive to set up e-commerce capability on your own website because you must have an SSL-enabled server, software to process and forward the encrypted credit card information to a third party that can decode the data and perform the authorization on your behalf, a business account with your financial institution that can accept the automated deposits, and a secure certificate to show visitors that their information is in fact secure.

If you are interested in selling products online, our service offers a much simpler and quicker method than a full e-commerce site. Let your customers choose which product or service they want, enter their contact information, and you can start receiving orders immediately. You can then either contact your customer in order to obtain payment information (an easy-to-start and inexpensive alternative to secure online transactions), or use a third party to perform the credit card authorizations.

What type of referral program do you have?

Very simple: if you refer a paying customer, you will receive 30% off your form – in addition, the referree will have their services discounted by 10%! The more business you refer, the more we will discount your services. If your discount is greater than the cost of your services, we will either credit your account or make a payment to you for the difference.

If you are interested in becoming an agent, please contact us – you may represent the company, be assigned an e-mail address (e.g. john@web-expression.com), offer discounts, and are entitled to 30% of the dollar value of all business referred to us for as long as the referrals remain paying customers.

We are also interested in partnerships with website developers and hosting companies.

What is the difference between the various types of forms you offer?

There are three categories:

Pre-built: what you see is what you get! We've found these simple forms to be among the most useful and commonly requested. There are three types of pre-built forms to choose from:
- Basic Contact Form: normally used for general inquiries, the user can type in their name, e-mail address, phone number, and questions or comments.
- Tell a Friend: let your visitors do your advertising for you! A "Tell a Friend" form can help promote your site when users send messages to their friends and family about your specials or products.
- Suggestion Box: get feedback from your customers and improve your service when they send suggestions, bug reports, or comments to you.
Create Your Own: we give you the ability to make a working form in just a few minutes – create up to 10 of your own questions, and decide whether or not they should be mandatory to submit the form. You can come back at any time to update your form, as many times as you like, and these changes will immediately be reflected on your website.
Custom: if you need a form with many questions or special abilities, such as performing calculations or dynamically changing the options for certain questions based on the answers to others, this is the choice for you. Just let us know what you need; we can create a custom form with up to 25 questions within three business days. Further questions may be subject to an additional one-time cost.

Do you have any recommendations for a "Create Your Own" form?

Make a list of questions before you build your form, this will give you a better idea what you need to ask.
Unless you require anonymous responses, always include questions for the user's name and e-mail address (and often phone number as well) – especially for order forms. Otherwise you might receive orders and have no way to contact the sender.
Ask the minimum number of questions you need and avoid redundant items – in general the longer the form, the less likely users are to complete it. Keep it short and simple!
For each question, decide if your viewer should only be allowed to choose certain options (such as in a select menu), or if the answers can be more open-ended (such as in a textbox, where they can type in whatever they want).
You'll also need to decide if certain questions should be mandatory – that is, if they must be completed in order for users to submit the form. In general you'll probably want to make the name and e-mail address mandatory – otherwise you won't be able to contact the sender. (A special case is the checkbox – don't make these mandatory unless you need to force the viewer to check them to proceed. Normally the only time you want to do this is if they must indicate whether they've read "terms and conditions".)
When choosing a color, style, or font, select a combination of these that match your website. If you have a special request, please let us know.
When choosing whether you want your form to be "embedded", or displayed in a "pop-up" window, first have a look at your page – if you have a lot of empty space, you'll probably want the form to appear directly in your webpage. Alternatively, the pop-up option is a very space-efficient way of presenting a form – it will appear when one of your regular buttons (or one that we provide) is clicked, and allows users to fill in the form while looking at information on the original page. This can be very useful if they are ordering and are still able to view product details in the background.

What are the different types of form elements, and how do they work?

Form elements are a means by which someone can answer a question. There are six main types:

Textbox: this is the most common method of letting someone answer questions – the user is able to simply type whatever they like into a box. Once the box is filled, the person can continue typing as the text scrolls to the left. Text may also be pasted into the box.

Example Your name:
Select menu: also called a drop-down menu; when the menu is clicked a list of options appears. Only one of these options may be selected.

Example I found your website from:
Radio buttons: the user is presented with a set of options, but only one may be selected – the choices are mutually-exclusive.

Example When is the best time to contact you?

Morning Afternoon

Evening Doesn't matter
Checkbox: may be either clicked on or off – this is a yes-or-no question.

Example Add me to your mailing list
Multiple checkboxes: when you want to offer many possible choices which are not mutually exclusive, such as a list of products, use multiple checkboxes. The user can click one of them, several, all, or none (unless you make the question mandatory, then they must make at least one selection). You can offer up to 50 options.

Example Choose one or more colors:

Green Blue

Red Yellow

Orange Purple

Grey Brown
Textarea box: similar to the textbox, but several rows of space are made available; these are for larger amounts of information such as addresses or blocks of text. The text will wrap down to the next line, and once the available space is filled a vertical scrollbar will appear so that the user can continue entering information. Text may also be pasted into the box.

Example Enter your Questions or Comments:

Why does a box appear when I choose "select menu", "radio buttons", or "multiple checkboxes" as one of my questions?

If you choose any of these, you must enter the options that will appear when your form is displayed. For example, certain options must appear in the select menu for a user to choose – the question might be "Where did you find our website?", and the possible choices would then appear in the menu – if you want to let them enter any possible answer, a textbox would be a better solution. If you use radio buttons, the question might be "When is the best time to contact you?", and the options could be "Morning", "Afternoon", "Evening", and "Any time". Multiple checkboxes are useful if you want to offer the user many possible choices that are not mutually exclusive. The options should be entered into the box, one per line. If you have many options, such as a list of countries, you can even copy and paste many of them into the box at once!

What does it mean to make a question mandatory?

There is an option to make any (or all) of your questions mandatory – this means that the question must be answered in order for the user to submit the form. There are certain things you'll probably want to require, such as name and e-mail address that must be filled in to allow the person to proceed. These questions appear in red to show they're required, and if someone tries to submit the form without entering anything then they'll be reminded to fill in the necessary information before the message can be sent.

A special case is the checkbox – don't make these mandatory unless you need to force the viewer to check them to proceed. Normally the only time you want to do this is if they must indicate whether they've read "terms and conditions". If you make multiple checkboxes mandatory, the user must tick at least one option.

What's the difference between the "color" and "texture" options for my form?

When you create your form, you can choose a solid-color background or a colored pattern such as marble – the questions will appear on top of this background. We offer a number of different options, but don't be afraid to experiment because you can quickly change the background at any time without having to re-enter all your questions.

What is the difference between an "embedded" and a "pop-up" form?

"Embedded" is when the form appears directly in your webpage – the user will see it immediately. On the other hand, you might want your form to appear as a "pop-up", which means they must click a link or button and the form will then appear in a small new window. For example, click here.

If you have a lot of empty space, you'll probably want the form to appear directly in your page. The advantage of the pop-up option is that it's a very space-efficient way of presenting a form – it will only appear when one of your regular buttons (or one that we provide) is clicked, and allows users to fill in the form while looking at information on the original page. This can be very useful if they are ordering and are still able to view product details in the background.

What is a "Thank You" page?

Once a form is filled in and submitted, some type of message should be displayed to indicate to the user that the message has been sent. By default we provide a generic message thanking the person for their submission, in the same colors and style as your form. However you can also create and use your own page, or even redirect to any page at all such as your home page. Should you choose to use your own page, please ensure that you enter a valid web address or a "Page Not Found" error might appear instead. You can test this by typing or pasting the address into your browser to make sure it appears properly.

How can I update my form?

Once the payment transaction is complete, we provide a link you can use to make changes at any time. Please make a note of it, you can also contact us and we'll send a copy of the link to the e-mail address we have on file for you.

When you log in the questions for your form will automatically be populated so that you don't need to enter them again – this makes it a lot easier to update just a single question or style attribute. You can also change the recipient address, the location of your "Thank You" page, or any of the other information.

you won't need to update any of the code we provide for your site unless you change the options for a pop-up.

We have the code you provided, how do we update our webpage?

We provide just a few lines of code to make this as easy as possible, just enter it in the location on your page(s) where you want the form or link to appear – most websites have a content management system (CMS) or FTP access for changes. In either case, you'll need a user ID and password to edit your page(s) – if you don't have this information, your developer probably does. If you are having problems, we can also update your site for you for a small cost.

Can we use the form on multiple pages?

Yes, use your form on as many different pages as you like! You may want a link to your Contact Form, "Tell a Friend", or Suggestion Box with the rest of your links on each page. If you have a "Create Your Own" form, you can update the questions without having to change anything on your pages (unless you change the options for a "pop-up", such as using a different type of button or switching from "embedded" to "pop-up").

Can we get a discount for multiple different forms?

Yes, in general we will discount the cost of each additional different form by 50%. If you need a large number of forms (more than 10 different types), please contact us about special pricing.

Why was my e-mail message delayed? Is it possible for an e-mail from a form to get "lost"?

This is extremely rare, but once a message leaves our server we no longer have control over what happens to it. When an e-mail is sent, it passes through many computers over a huge area enroute to its destination – once in a great while there will be a problem somewhere along the way that will delay or even destroy a message, but that can potentially happen with any e-mail message and is not more or less likely with our service than any other method. It can be compared to the postal service, which is usually very good but can occasionally lose a letter. The vast majority of messages will be delivered to the recipient's mailbox within a few seconds.

However, for the reason that we cannot guarantee the timely receipt or delivery of every message, the use of this service is at user's own risk – we are not liable for any damages resulting from use of the service.

Privacy & Conditions of Use

Your e-mail address and other contact information will never be disclosed to a third party for any reason. We're in the business of Internet communication and are very sensitive to the issues of spam and e-mail abuse.

We do not save or view anything submitted through the forms. We do keep track of the total number of submissions for each form which can help identify bugs and other problems, but no other information besides this one number.

Regarding your credit card details, that information never passes through our hands since the transaction is handled by PayPal, one of the leading merchant payment services with the highest level of online security.

By using our service, you are agreeing to waive any and all potential legal claims relating to the delivery of e-mail messages from our forms. As described in the question above, we have no direct control over the e-mail delivery process and cannot therefore guarantee the timely receipt or delivery of every message. The use of our forms is at user's own risk; we are not liable for any damages resulting from use of the service.

If we need something special done, can you help?

We can often accommodate special requests at no cost, just contact us and we'll see what we can do. If it's a very complex job then a Custom form might be required.

Please contact us with any feedback or suggestions that you may have, we're always looking for ways to try and improve our service!