Every website should have at least one form, a "Contact Us" or "Feeback" form. The primary reason for this, rather than a simple mailto: link is that well-designed forms will shield your E-Mail Address from spambots, crawlers and other e-mail harvesters. These automated tools scour every public file in your website or blog, looking for anything that looks like a valid E-Mail address.

Most hosting companies provide one or more forms processing scripts. The results, however, are usually a non-custom, unformatted E-Mail message, and generally less than ideal for anything other than simple notifications.

There are a few excellent template-based form processing scripts available, and there is always Front Page, but these tools often lack the flexibility you need to make them do ‘exactly’ what you want, and many have a steep learning curve.

There is, however, no need for compromise. Forms based pages can and will do much more than generate simple text-based E-Mail messages.

My elegant forms-based solutions are being used to:

• Send custom HTML Mail
• Interact with databases to generate dynamic content
• Perform complex calculations
• Request information
• Place orders
• Generate Bar Codes
• Build membership systems
• Upload and download files
• Collect online payments
• Take reservations
• Conduct surveys
• Administer online tests and quizzes
• Build online contests
• Interact with Flash and other Web-based applications
• More … the limit is imagination.

Whether it’s a simple request for information or a secure, multi-page survey connected to a database, you can maintain the same high quality design in your forms and their actions that you do for the rest of your sites.

Where to Go From Here

1. Review the basic components of an HTML Form
2. Take a quick look at a few of the Forms Design Considerations
3. Tell me about your form.
4. I’ll contact you with any questions, and/or help determine your requirements.
5. I'll verify that your Web Server or Host supports the languages and protocols that we use.
6. If needed, I can host your forms and databases for you.
7. We negotiate a mutually agreeable “Not To Exceed” price for your project.
8. I load your forms on our servers for proofing and testing. When all is well, I send you the code, with instructions for adding it to your php/html documents and setting up the database tables if needed.
9. If you prefer, you can send a page template with the accompanying style sheets, database requirements, (if any) and graphics for your site. I can then build the finished form and send you the code, ready to load onto your host. I include any queries needed to add and/or populate any new tables to your database, with instructions and of course, publishing support. I can also install everything directly on your server, or host your form on ours.

If you’d rather spend your time on the Design, Form and Function of your Web site rather than buried in code and obscure API’s, let a User Interface Design and Usability Professional build the layout and logic, and hook up the wiring behind your interactive, database aware, forms designs.

Try An Interactive Form Now to tell me your requirements for interactive form-based Web solutions.

As always, I look forward to being a partner in your success.

Steve Eggleston