In this article, we’ll be explaining how to create your feedback form. In order to create your feedback form, you’ll first need to have a feedback button created. If you did not already create one, check our guide on creating your first feedback button first.
Reading time: 5min
Difficulty: Beginner
Types of feedback forms
When you have your feedback button created you’ll have the option to create two types of feedback forms. These are the default form and a Custom Form:
- The default form, as the name indicates, is the default feedback form that is shown when once the user clicks your feedback button.
- A custom form can be used to override your default form on specific pages, please see this article for more information on Custom Forms.
In this article, we will be setting up your default form which is part of setting up. Setting up a default feedback form is divided into three stages:
- The Form Editor, in which you can specify the questions your visitors are asked when they’re giving feedback.
- The Intro Screen Editor, in which you specify the formatting of the introduction screen when visitors initially click on the feedback button.
- The Exit Screen Editor, in which you specify the formatting of the exit screen that visitors see after they gave feedback.
Step 1: The Form Editor
The first step that we’re going to discuss is the Form editor, which allows you to edit the basic format of your feedback form.
Form Editor: Language
First, you can choose a language from the drop-down menu. Out of the box we support 20+ languages to get you started right away. Selecting a language in the drop-down menu will set all the default text of the feedback form to that specific language. Please keep mind that only the default feedback form questions exist for all the languages.
Form Editor: The visual feedback setting
Next, we can choose the form’s Visual Feedback setting.
This setting will indicate which type of feedback your users can leave through your form. There are 4 options:
1. Specific or Generic
This option will ask your visitors which type of feedback they want to leave, in the intro screen.
2. Always Specific
This option will not give users a choice in the type of feedback they leave. They always have to specify a part of your website on which they want to leave feedback.
3. Always Generic
This option will not give users a choice in the type of feedback they leave. They will not get the possibility to specify a part of your website. Thus their feedback will always be generic. This option also removes the intro-screen from your feedback form. After clicking the button the feedback form will be shown right away.
4. No visual feedback
This option ensures that no visual feedback is gathered. No screenshots will be taken, and users will not be able to specify a part of the page on which they want to leave feedback. This option also removes the intro-screen from your feedback form. After clicking the button the feedback form will be shown right away. If you're dealing with a lot of privacy-sensitive information on your web pages which would involve a lot of masking settings this is the easiest way to ensure you do not collect any privacy-sensitive information
Form Editor: The Form itself
Next, we’ll look at the form itself. While editing your feedback form you’ll see a preview of the feedback form in the center of the screen. Keep in mind that this is a mere preview of the form elements. How the form will show on your website can be seen in on the installation instructions page.
At the top of the feedback form, you’ll find the mood-rating question. This question is the most important one since it gives you a direct insight into the emotional state of your user. Because of its importance, this question is always the first in your form, and cannot be removed. By default, a mood-rating will be used. If you, however, would like to use for example use a star-rating or a like/dislike please reach out to your Customer Success Manager to have themes added to your account that allow for this.
With the exception of the rating/mood question, all the elements in the form can be re-ordered by using the drag icon. The drag icon can be identified by the hamburger icon in the side and changed mouse cursor when you hover over it.
You can remove, or edit all elements by hovering over them and clicking the remove/edit buttons. The edit button is indicated with an “edit” label and the delete button is indicated with a trashcan icon. All elements have different editing options. You can find a detailed description of all form elements in our other Support Articles.
Tip: Make sure to get in touch with your Customer Success Manager for personalized advice for creating a feedback form that is catered to your users and your goals.
On the left-hand side you’ll find the ‘Form Controls’ menu on the left you can add new elements to your form. We recommend that you don’t add more than 3 questions in your feedback form.
Generally speaking less is more here, in most cases, you’ll see that having fewer form controls will improve the number of feedback items you’ll receive. However, if you’re getting a lot of feedback in it might be a good idea to add some additional form controls to add some additional segmentation before the feedback item comes in.
Form Editor: Conditional Forms
Next, we have a special element which you can add to your feedback form. The ‘Conditional Forms drop-down’.
This drop-down element allows you to ask your visitor to specify the type of feedback that they’re leaving, and show them alternative follow up questions based on their answer:
You can read more about setting up your conditional forms question here.
Form Editor: Advanced settings
Finally, we get to the ‘Advanced’ settings of your form. In the advanced settings, you can set and edit a couple of settings.
There are a couple of important settings in this menu:
Theme
The ‘Theme’ drop-down allows you to select the look of your feedback form. By default, there are two themes (Default and Star Rating). If you have a custom theme it will be shown in this drop-down. Don’t have a customized theme yet? Get in touch with your Customer Success Manager to discuss the options or request one straight away via the following request form.
Logo (legacy)
The ‘Logo’ drop-down allows you to select a logo that will be displayed as a ‘draghandle’ on the top of your feedback form. By default, only the Usabilla logo is available’. If you have a custom logo, it will be shown in this drop-down.
Copy Feedback Form
The ‘Copy feedback form’ menu can be used to copy the elements from an existing feedback form to the one you’re editing now. This is especially handy when using multiple feedback buttons.
Labels
In the ‘Labels’ field, you can setup specific labels. The label you fill in here will be automatically attached to all the feedback items that are left through this form. We’ll look into more elaborately later, so you can leave this blank for now.
Privacy
Finally the ‘Show Privacy Info’ option. This allows you to add a link to your privacy statement or add some text that will be displayed when the users moves his mouse-pointer over the “privacy info” link.
Now that you’re finished with setting up your feedback form, click ‘next’ to edit the Intro screen.
Step 2: The intro screen
The intro screen is the screen that your visitors will see first when they click the Feedback Button. Do note that the intro screen is only shown when:
- Your users can leave specific or generic feedback
- Your users can only leave specific feedback
Both of these options have different intro screens. First, we’ll take a look at the intro screen for users who can leave specific or generic feedback:
When you click the ‘Edit’ icon in the top right you can edit the form. This will give you the following options:
- Mouse start: This is the text your user sees when he is asked to select a specific part of the website to give feedback about (on desktop)
- Touch start: This is the text your user sees when he is asked to select a specific part of the website to give feedback about (on mobile)
- Title: adds a title to your intro screen
- Subtitle: Adds a subtitle to your intro screen
- Specific title: Changes the title of ‘specific feedback’
- Specific text: Changes the description of your ‘specific feedback’
- Generic Title: Changes the title of ‘generic feedback’
- Generic text: Changes the description of your ‘generic feedback’
- Add custom option: This adds a third button to your intro screen which you can use to redirect visitors to a different part of your website (e.g. your contact page)
The editing options allow you to change all the text on this page. If the intro page is to your liking, click ‘next’ to go to the Exit Screen.
Step 3: The Exit screen
Where you can use the edit button to edit the text you see in your exit screen. In this step, you can change the Title, Text, "Show more feedback button", and the Continue Browsing Text. After the exit screen, you can click ‘save’ to save your form.
Previewing your form
Your form is now created! Use the button preview to see what it will look like on your site.
Clicking on the feedback button there will show the actual form that you'll be able to use on your website. So test it out by leaving a feedback item.
Now that you have a feedback button and feedback form, let’s put in on your website!