Experiences reported by my Client ...
My client recently implemented a
Form for his
website visitors to obtain Quotes for Equipment that he rents out.
Some problems reported by him/visitors.
a) There are many fields for the visitor to fill out ... so the Form is long ... taller than the average Browser window.
So, when the visitor clicks on the Form's Button, if there are errors (like required fields being empty), ZOHO Creator displays these errors just below the erroneous fields ... but the visitors don't often see them as they are not visible ... so they often end up clicking on the Form Button again and again ... and then give up in frustration ... some call my Client to complain ... but those that don't bother to call represent significant lost Sales.
Why can't the form be repositioned so error messages are visible ? ... or popup an "error dialog box" in the middle of the Browser window that the user must click on to have it do away ... he/she can then search for the error messages ... perhaps this should be an option to be specified at development time ... so current Forms are not adversely impacted.
b) the Click section has about 150 Deluge commands ... as it has to do ...
- check for a number of error situations
- verify stock availability
- calculate prices
- save the fields from the (Stateless) Form to the regular Table/Form
- compose a (rich text) email
At times, it takes ZOHO a long time to service all the commands ... but during this long delay the user has no feedback whether the Button click was accepted or not ... so they end up clicking more than once ... which results in them receiving multiple emails.
This kind of experince was reported by other Clients of mine ... but the Forms were used by internal staff, it was easy to train them to be patient ... this is NOT possible with website visitors.
I know that others have also encountered/reported similar problems.
Why can't ZOHO Creator "disable" the Buttons immediately upon being clicked (via client side javascript instead of waiting for server side round-trip) ... and in order to provide user feedback, it should be somewhat similar to what is often termed "lightbox" displays (by the ajax web 2.0 crowd) ... and unblock (enable) the Button/Form upon processing of the section script.
Gaev