Every form has three users

A form looks like a simple thing. It has a list of questions, a logo at the top and a place to sign.

I have built ServiceM8 forms for trade businesses for years. The same problems turn up again and again:

• The tech skips a question that mattered. It was hidden between twenty questions that did not apply.
• The customer gets a four-page PDF and cannot find the one thing they want to know: did it pass?
• The office calls the tech at 5 pm to ask what "see above" means.
• The owner needs to add one question, and nobody wants to touch the form in case it breaks.

None of these is a software problem. They are design problems. And they all come from the same mistake: the form was built for one person, but it has three.

The three users

Most forms are built for one of them. A long, careful checklist is built for the reader, and the tech hates it. A quick form is built for the tech, and the customer gets a PDF they cannot read. A form that nobody can change works for both of them, until the day the business changes.

A good form works for all three. Here are 15 rules for that: five for each user. Each rule has its own short video.

The filler: fast and clear on site

The tech fills in your form at the end of a long job, maybe in the rain, maybe with the customer watching. Every extra question costs time. Every unclear question gives you a wrong answer.

1. Know who reads the PDF, and what they do next

Before you write one question, finish this sentence: "When this form is done, ___ reads it, and then ___."

The office reads it and sends the invoice. The customer reads it and books the repair. The builder files it for an audit. If you cannot finish the sentence, you are not ready to write questions.

Watch video 1: Start with the purpose

2. Cut every question that does not feed that next step

If nobody reads the answer, the question is a cost with no return. "Just in case" questions are how a one-page form becomes four pages.

Make one form for one job. A hot water service and a blocked drain do not need the same form.

Watch video 1: Start with the purpose

3. Ask in the order the work happens

A tech arrives, looks, works, cleans up and gets a signature. The form should go in the same order.

When the questions jump around, the tech scrolls back and forth. That is when answers get missed.

4. Give choices, not blank boxes, where you can

Yes / No / N/A takes one tap. A text box takes a minute, and it gives you five spellings of the same answer.

Use a pick list when you know the answers. Keep text boxes for things that need words, like "What did you find?" And put the unit in the label: "Water pressure (kPa)". Then nobody types "good".

5. Ask only what applies to this job

When an item passes, you do not need to ask what is wrong with it. Show the follow-up question only after "No" or "Fail". The tech sees a short form, and the important question stands out.

Some answers are for you, not for the customer, like a note for the office. Ask them, but leave them off the PDF.

Then test the form at your desk, with a few different answers, before a tech finds the mistake on a live job.

The reader: a PDF they understand in 10 seconds

The PDF is what your customer keeps. It is often the only thing they see of your work. It should look like it came from a business that knows what it is doing.

6. Put the result first

The customer opens the PDF with one question in mind. Did it pass? Is it safe? What happens next?

Put that answer at the top of page one, large and clear. The details come after, for the people who want them. If the result is on page three, expect a call.

7. Use clear levels: heading, label, answer

Three levels are enough. A heading for each part. A small, quiet label. A larger, darker answer. The eye goes to the answers, and the answers are what the reader wants.

Line everything up on the same left edge. Leave white space between the parts. White space is not waste: it shows the reader where one part ends and the next begins.

8. Give colour a job

Pick one brand colour, and use greys for the rest. Keep strong colours for the things that matter: PASS in green, FAIL in red, DO NOT DRIVE in red.

When every heading has a different colour, nothing stands out.

9. Never let colour carry the meaning alone

Many offices print in black and white. And about 1 man in 12 has some colour blindness, so red and green can look the same to him.

So always add the word or a symbol: a tick, a cross, the word FAIL. Print your form in black and white once, and check that it still makes sense. Check the contrast too. Pale text on a pale band is hard to read on paper.

10. Print nothing blank

A PDF with 30 empty lines and six empty photo boxes looks unfinished. Worse, the reader wonders if the tech forgot something.

Leave out the rows with no answer, the photos that were not taken, and the parts that do not apply to this job. The PDF shows what happened on this job, not the whole form.

One more tip: always check the real PDF from ServiceM8, not only the preview on your screen. Text can sit a little differently on the printed page, and a form that only just fits on one page can spill onto a second.

The changer: easy and safe to change

Your business will change. You will add a service, change a supplier, get a new logo, or learn that a question confuses your techs. The form has to change with it, and the person who changes it may not be the person who built it.

11. Give every question a clear name

"Hot water tank: leaking?" tells you what the question is a year from now. "Q47" does not.

Clear names make every later change faster. They also make the rules easy to read: "Show 'Describe the leak' when 'Hot water tank: leaking?' is Yes" explains itself.

12. Use one look for all your forms

Use the same colour, the same header, the same footer and the same fonts on every form. Your forms look like they come from one business, because they do.

And when you change your logo or your colour, you change one look, not twelve forms.

13. Keep the rules simple

Clever rules break. A rule that depends on three answers is hard to test, and harder to change.

If you need more than one sentence to explain a rule, split it into two simple rules. Or split the form into two forms.

14. Change one thing, then test

Change one thing at a time. Then fill in the form the way a tech will, with a few different answers. A test at your desk takes five minutes. A mistake on a live job costs a call, an unhappy customer, and sometimes a second visit.

When the change goes live, tell the team what changed and why.

15. Keep the old version until the new one works

Save a copy before you change a form. If the new version has a problem, go back to the old one today, and fix the new one tomorrow.

Why I built Form Designer

Most of these rules are easy to say and hard to do in a Word template. Hiding a blank row, showing a question only after "Fail", keeping the PDF in step with the questions: in Word, each of these means field codes, and one wrong field code can break the whole form.

So I built Form Designer, a ServiceM8 add-on. You design the form once, by drag and drop. From that one design it makes both the questions your tech fills in and the Word template that prints the PDF. Nobody opens Word.

Every rule in this post has a tool in Form Designer:

• Start from one of eight starter forms, each with its own look, and take out the parts you do not need.
• Show a question only when an earlier answer calls for it. Leave a row, a photo or a whole part off the PDF when it has no answer.
• Put a large coloured PASS or FAIL at the top, with tick and cross icons next to each answer.
• Copy one look onto all your forms with Apply a look.
• Check every rule with the Logic check, and fill in the form at your desk with Run the form before it goes live.
• Keep every earlier version of each form in My forms, and go back in two clicks.

Form Designer is free to install, and you can build and preview a whole form before you pay.