Ask HN: Use cases for forms-based software tool?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8439090

by ahochhaus • 12 years ago

10 11 12 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

We are working on a prototype of FormBig, a platform to quickly create forms-based software.

https://formbig.com/ [video]

To prioritize our development goals, we are looking for community feedback about:

1) What use cases would you use FormBig for?

2) What features are important for your use case?

ahochhaus3• 12 years ago

The two co-founders (myself and eksurfus) are here to answer any questions. We are hoping to gain insight into specific use cases for FormBig to guide our to market strategy and development priorities. Thanks for any feedback you can offer.

eksurfus2• 12 years ago

We currently use this platform in-house for a K-12 application with 40K+ users.

We found that there was a tremendously high hurdle to building forms-based applications to meet user expectations (eg rich-text editing, PDF generation, auto-saving, real-time collaboration, per-field versioning, etc). FormBig factors out this plumbing, allowing developers to instead focus on the specific forms, business logic, and end-user use cases instead.

semmem1• 12 years ago

What kind of cost do you expect to charge for this? A problem I have now with some of the form base software is that the charge for multiple users who each create one form is very high, as they charge per user, not based on how many forms the users make.

ahochhaus3• 12 years ago

We don't have a final pricing model figured out yet, but we would like to support applications with a variety of needs. If we had a per-form based pricing option would that meet your needs?

Can you describe your use case a bit and the other platforms you have looked at thus far?

Someone1234• 12 years ago

Doing a MVP is fine, but frankly your web-site is so light on details that I don't have a strong opinion about where this product would slot in.

I cannot help but immediately want to compare it to Ruby On Rails or Microsoft's MVC framework. They both offer a lot of the plumbing for you, and leave the actual content to you.

Maybe it is more akin to Microsoft Lightswitch, not sure.

But that might be just from my misunderstanding. It should be noted I watched the video without audio, and it just shows someone entering XML and showing a form.

ahochhaus3• 12 years ago

Great feedback. We are too light on details. I'm adding a more detailed description shortly.

The original idea with the video was to show the types of functionality that FormBig exposes (eg: integrated logins, JS-based logic, rich text editing, etc) rather than the details of how one achieves them. However, I think since we went that path it is important to get more details in the body of the page.

Thanks for the pointer to MS Lightswitch I'm learning more about it now.

gee_totes2• 12 years ago

I am building a similar forms based framework/product. Here is what I have discovered is needed:

-Proper handling of an other field, like there is on paper forms. I.e. What is your favorite salad? a) Fruit b) Vegetable c) Other __________

-Ability to string multiple forms together in a workflow (kind of like a CRM). Form 1 must be completed before the user can move on to Form 2. However, when some or all of the fields are optional, there needs to be some type of trigger logic to mark the form in the workflow as completed. (I sort of saw this in the video, but it seemed that the forms were marked simply as steps and the end user could skip from Step 1 to Step 9)

-Sub-forms, both in terms of adding multiple contact addresses (for example) or switching from Sub-form A to Sub-form B in the context of a form workflow (you guys seems to have this)

-Permissions on every question and on every part (Form 1, Form 2, etc) in the workflow (you guys seems to have the question permissions down, but I'm not sure about the statistics)

-A rich query language to crunch statistics from every form field filled out (It seems your application outputs CSVs and leaves the user to crunch them in Excel)

-If a form is tied to an entity (say a Student, for example), the ability to assign that Student to a Teacher or an Administrator. (I did not see this)

-Ability for daily e-mail reports on what new forms have been created and updated and what new Students have been added to the system. (this was mentioned on the about section, but I did not see it in the video)

My forms framework does all this and more, but it took quite a bit of effort to build. I would be more than happy to talk specifics with you guys; my e-mail is in my profile.

I must warn you though, you are entering a rabbit-hole.

eksurfus2• 12 years ago

Thanks so much for the feedback. What market(s)/use cases did you consider when you designed your forms platform (eg medical forms for private practice, tax-related forms for government, HR forms for enterprise)? We are finding that our general model works ~80% well in a lot of these cases, but we're working to identify the market segment to really focus on drilling down into.

I think you said it well when you said you're entering the rabbit hole :). Building these types of applications is HARD, and there's a high barrier to MVP. We're currently working to get as much feedback as we can to scope our problem more narrowly. We've found interest from people in developing applications in government and K-12 especially - have you had similar experiences?

While its a tough nut to crack, we think if we can grab a toehold and iterate, this type of solution could save vast amounts of developer time.

gee_totes2• 12 years ago

We're targeting a pretty specific market that I don't want to mention, but it is an industry that uses alot of forms.

For us, there wasn't a very high barrier to MVP. We went from initial concept to MVP in about 2 weeks using some of the ideas around superfast development I outlined in this talk [0].

Where the rabbithole came in is once we put out the MVP, we were bombarded with feature requests for things that were beyond simply an easier way to fill out forms (this is where alot of the CRM functionality came in).

We haven't reached out to anyone in government or K-12. We'd like to build our forms framework and keep it in this little niche market we've discovered and then start reaching out to other markets.

Our forms application has been very hard to build as well, but I think we are one major re-factor away from having a good platform. I'm thinking at the end of the day we are going to get something that looks like a cross between Redmine's CRM functionality and Drupal's modularity/observer pattern-ness/business logic in the database-ness.

What are you guys writing FormBig in? I'd be interested in collaborating on a set of open-source HTML5 form controls with you guys if that's something that you're finding a need for. It could address some of the things that I've found lacking in the standard HTML forms (such as the support for an other field and dynamic switching of sub-forms). I'm probably going to end up writing this library anyway, but it would be good PR for both of us :)

[0] http://www.slideshare.net/LeeGillentine/superfast-developmen...

sexylibrarian• 12 years ago

We're going to need a form like this on our new site. We currently have a form (for submitting book reviews) on our current site: http://www.inthestacks.tv/submit-review/

We'll shortly be leaving the WP site. Please email me more information about your product. We might want to try it for the above and for new user sign up and preferences.

Many Thanks - Michelle Z., michelle@inthestacks.tv

sharemywin• 12 years ago

we use a form editor to create documents for claims and policies. They are form letters that usually have a combination of data from the claim system and custom entry for the specifics of the claim.

Ask HN: Use cases for forms-based software tool?

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