Why do People use Forms

There are a number of different reasons as to why people, businesses, and websites use and need forms. As you learn more about forms, you will quickly discover an unending amount of practical use cases for them. The most rudimentary explanation people use forms is to collect data. The different types of data, however, are the primary reason different types of forms are needed. For instance, logging into an app, posting to social media, making an online purchase, or performing a search through a search engine all require forms. Forms play an important role in virtually every aspect of the internet, and we interact with them on a daily basis.

Before the internet, people, banks, and businesses used paper forms or documents to do business on a daily basis. Now that companies have moved online, paper forms have become digital documents. When you think of a PDF, you may not think of a traditional contact form, however a PDF is a form. PDFs contain radio buttons, check boxes, text fields, etc. In today’s world, PDFs have been digitized into what are called fillable PDFs. Fillable PDFs use the traditional inputs of a form to overlay the areas that need to be filled out. In essence, a fillable PDF is a form with a background image.

Combine online forms with programming, and now people can fully automate repetitive tasks that once involved manually filling out forms and properly filing them away. With this level of automation, people can leverage forms to conduct business without seeing a customer face-to-face, automate taxes and payroll, gather information from their customers, sign contracts, etc.

Forms are a part of our everyday life, in ways we have simply never thought. For example: the very browser you are using to read this article contains a form. The address bar which contains the URL to this blog post is a form input. Web browsers use a single input form to determine the website you’re wanting to visit or are currently visiting.

Forms are used for creating and editing account profiles. When a person logs into an app or pays a bill, they may need to create or update their account information. The profile form may contain various input fields, such as text fields, tel fields, which are phone number inputs, a website URL input, and a file upload field. The file upload field accepts images, which is how a profile image can be uploaded and displayed on your profile. When you favorite a post on a social media website or app, the click of your mouse or tap is, in essence, selecting a radio or checkbox field, which is another common HTML form element. The social media website combines the post's reaction button with the form's submit button, and when selecting the reaction, the form is simultaneously submitted along with your selection.

The single most popular way people use forms for their websites is for a user to ask questions through a contact form. A contact form transforms a static website into an interactive website by giving visitors a way to communicate with your company. With traditional contact forms, companies allow customers to make general inquiries, create new support tickets, and generate new leads for their businesses. Contact forms can be extremely beneficial for businesses and customers alike. People use forms for an inexhaustible amount of reasons, and contact forms are the most practical way to use forms for websites.