New-look survey forms

Over the next couple of weeks we'll be giving everybody's survey forms a fresh coat of paint. Here's a summary of what to expect.

We're rebuilding everybody's forms using our new cross-platform form engine, as the first stage in a plan to bring them all to our upcoming mobile app (watch this space for announcements about mobile soon).

What's changing?

The new forms are very similar to the old ones. However, there are a few noticeable differences:

New Background - We've given them a grey background to make white text fields easier to see.

New Top Bar - The form title and "Save" button stick to the top of the window so they're always always visible no matter where you are on the page. We've added an "Options" button that gathers up things like the "Copy" and "Delete" buttons, the switch to show/hide help text, and other settings.

New Save Prompt - When you save a survey, you can now choose to stay on the survey form or return to the survey list. Really useful when working on long forms!

Goodbye, Orange Warnings - In interviews with users we found that "orange warnings" (that indicate problems on a form that you can ignore) were often confused with "red errors" (that indicate problems that you can't ignore). We've rebranded orange warnings as "blue hints" that look less like errors and more like the prompts they're intended to be.

Goodbye, Blue Buttons - We've replaced the big sets of blue/orange buttons that we used to use for "select an option" and "select all that apply" fields, with dropdown menus, radio buttons, and checkboxes that are more commonplace on the web and more intuitive to new users.

"Select one option" style buttons are replaced with dropdown menus or sets of round "radio buttons" depending on the situation:

"Select all that apply" buttons are replaced with sets of square checkboxes:

Photo Uploads - The "Browse…" button to upload photographs is replaced with a big "Upload" button that clearly states any constraints on file size. You can even drag-and-drop photographs over the button if you've already got them to hand in another window:

When are these changes happening?

We've updated a lot of forms already:

• Big Windermere
• MoRPh Estuaries
• MudSpotter
• PlaceMarker (including River Stretch and Study Area)
• Priority Habitats (including Naturalness and Restoration Priorities)
• Wildflower Warriors
• Storm Phosphates
• SmartRivers
• Urban River Survey

Here's an approximate timetable for the remaining forms:

• Westcountry Rivers Trust - Estimated late October (including Westcountry CSI)
• Thames21 - Estimated late October (including River Action Groups, Slow the Flow, and Thames River Watch)
• MoRPh Rivers - Estimated mid November
• River Condition Assessment - Estimated mid November
• Riverfly - Estimated mid December

Can I try out the new forms now?

We'd love it if you would! Simply click the "Preview new form" button at the top of any old-style form and you'll see a fully functional preview of the new form:

Please try them out and give us feedback if you have suggestions for improvement!