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Anonymous
February 10, 2012
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Forms 2.0 - Better forms without code

  • February 10, 2012
  • 126 replies
  • 35384 views
[Please add your comments below to help build a strong case]

Since the FORMS 2.0 idea from Glen Lipka has long been lost, it's time to bring it back and get it on the agenda.  It only been raised as an issue for 3 years and more than 2 versions of this community.  Even one of recent ideas from the community for the Amazing Race Idea was for form improvements: Form Widgets!.

Basically Forms need to be come way easier without manipulation through code.  There are a lot of small improvements that could be made to the form functionality that would be a great benefit to clients without access to a web developer skill set.  

At one time or another, I have had marketers request most of the following list of form improvements:

  • support for HTML5 form elements
  • allow pre-population on a field by field basis as a form designer attribute
  • allow text fields to optionally concatenate the new value with the existing data
  • field masking for phone, sin number etc.
  • add real-time (onblur) validation, validation test conditions and  contextual error msgs
    • email regex,
    • min and max for numbers etc. 
    • phone with or without extention
    • domain name for spam exclusion - i.e. mickmouse@example.com a@a.com
    • alpha-only for names/text fields
    • Automatic formating for proper case including whitespace trimming
  • better positioning of the field label and error msg
  • more form layouts in terms of 2-3 columns layouts as well as fields that can span the columns
  • more control over the submit button:
    • its style/image
    • dynamic button text both before and after click text to make the form reusable on more that one landing page within the landing page editor
    • enable/disable submit based upon required fields/validation
  • provide more advanced type of controls:
    • date pickers,
    • sliders (range),
    • dropdowns (combobox) with icons, option groups etc.
    • better support for checkboxes/radio with multi-select 
  • dependant selections or skip logic i.e. country/state and surveys
  • geo-ip support for country/state
  • automatic detection and support for iframes to get parent parameters, adjust the form's target = _top etc.
  • better (dynamic) follow up options - new windows, dynamic redirect based upon other form fields, parameters or cookies
  • Allow fields from SFDC objects other than contact and lead

Forms have been one of the least attended to areas of Marketo; it has literally been years since any significant improvements have been made while the competition has not been standing still waiting.

Below is a small list for just from this version of community:

    126 replies

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    BDx
    BDx
    New Participant
    February 4, 2013
    I think we should form a picket line in front of the Marketo Summit in April and all march around with signs saying "We demand Forms 2.0". :)

    The fact that they can't add some simple stop gaps like inline styles, ad hoc css class names and HTML ID attributes to the existing fields is just insulting. There's no way little things like that are difficult or time consuming. The company has just chosen to ignore this issue for the last year. I think it's a real shame on the management.

    This situation definitely makes me feel like Marketo is too expensive. 
    A
    Anonymous
    February 4, 2013
    Yes, I know, absolutely, and the fact we can support each other in the community is a fantastic thing! sorry to imply otherwise.

    I think there's a certain level of frustration out there though that not only do Marketo tell you that you can just do it with javascript, they also then have a support policy that they do not support these customizations, so if you make the choice to go the coding route, you are literally on your own if you can't quite figure out how to make it work.

    Which, again, means that its great that there are people like yourself out there willing to help others out :)

    Rafael_Santoni1
    Rafael_Santoni1
    New Participant
    February 4, 2013
    Veronica,

    I agree 100%. However, for the time being, I am just trying to help a fellow Marketo user solve an immediate need until the platform supports those types of configurations instead of having to do customizations.

    Thank you,

    Rafael

    A
    Anonymous
    February 4, 2013
    I think that if the answer to the question "do you have access to a jquery/javascript developer?" was yes, then there wouldn't be a problem modifying pretty much anything. I think the main point here is that we need to not have to ask that question anymore, at least not for these simple, normal, everyday things.
    Rafael_Santoni1
    Rafael_Santoni1
    New Participant
    February 4, 2013
    Ben,

    You can use a bit of jQuery to modify only one of the "li" widths. If you have access to a jQuery developer, you can check for an "li" that contains a specific string, and you could either modify its CSS properties or you can actually destroy the "li" and re-create a new one that could be formed however you need it, including all it's content.

    If you want to go through some more details, feel free to reach me at my personal email rafael at rafaelsantoni dot com. I can try to take a look at your page and take a stab at giving you a place to start making your mods.

    Thank you,

    Rafael

    A
    Anonymous
    February 4, 2013
    Thanks Rafael. Yes, at this point I've already maxed out the capabilities of CSS with the given classes. It's really the field or input specific classes and ID's that would be a huge help.

    For instance, lets say you have a contact form and would like to have a checkbox at the bottom to sign up for emails. Yes, simple enough... but what if all of your labels are to the left and the signup copy is more than two words? Changing the width of  one li would change them all. There's no easy way to single out that one label or checkbox (if there is more than one checkbox) so that you can actually make a form that looks nice and is also useful. 



    Rafael_Santoni1
    Rafael_Santoni1
    New Participant
    February 1, 2013
    Ben,

    If your goal is to be able to manipulate the forms using CSS, you really don't have to wait for Marketo to add the functinality to add IDs or classes to fiels and labels. They alreay have values that you could manipulate with CSS.

    You can manipulate the CSS properties for things like:

    li.mktfield {}
    form.lpeRegForm label {  }
    form.lpeRegForm ul
    form.lpeRegForm li {  }

    All you need to do is include a CSS reference on your HTML template file, and you could manipulate all the forms look and feel from a single place.

    Before I get flamed by anyone because this should be an interface thing, in my defense I want to say that I am aware of that. I am only addressing the specific use case that Ben R brought up in the previous post. At the very least, there should be better documentation for al the "hacks" that we can do to override the current native assets.

    I do a combination of CSS and jQuery to manipulate some things, but CSS alone can move things along pretty good.

    Good luck,

    Rafael
      A
      Anonymous
      February 1, 2013
      I end up pulling out the forms and placing them back in in some instances as HTML elements. In some cases it works and some it doesn't. At least that way I can structure it with a table or add spacing in a form (groundbreaking idea, I know).

      As Nichole mentioned, the idea of creating a fluid opt-in/preferences process is an absolute joke for how much the software costs. As soon as you start thinking about usability and what makes sense to a user, you're already thinking beyond Marketo's form capabilites.

      A very simple update that could make a world of difference would be to allow ID's or classes to be added to fields and labels within the field specific form properties. That way it would be easier to single out form elements for positioning and style purposes using CSS.
      BDx
      BDx
      New Participant
      January 29, 2013
      I couldn't agree more. Marketo needs to get this on the roadmap.
      A
      Anonymous
      January 29, 2013
      Big +1 on this. In terms of being able to roll out Marketo usage across our global teams, this is the bottleneck. We have 10 non-tech people capable of doing everything else, but the bottleneck is forms and form behavior. "You can fix it using javascript" just isn't an acceptable response any more when the whole point is supposed to be to allow marketing teams to free themselves from having to ask the IT team to build it.
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