Multi-Language Forms

Long time no see! Lots have happened over the past few months around our workplace, but this is not the topic of my post. There is some notable news in the scene of contact form generators that deserve your attention. Today I am going to speak about multi-lingual form builders. 

I presume there are about 4 billion people who would be happy to have multi-language support with their web forms. It’s true that English has become nearly universal (and some extraterrestrial species speak it too, at least in Hollywood movies). However, it’s far more convenient for non-English natives to fill in forms presented in their own language. A multi-language web form is a good way to enhance user experience on your website and eliminate any possible confusion when submitting the form. Moreover, it shows your courtesy towards site visitors. 

A couple of most popular online form generators offer multi-language support. For example, Wufoo has a collection of translations in 46 languages and provides a right to left writing scheme. Formstack gives a 12 language pack, Formdesk – 8 languages and JotForm – 15 plus a downloadable file containing strings that users can translate in any other non-included languages. 

With 123ContactForm you have a 52 different languages palette to use within forms, which is quite impressive. I had a look inside their backend to see the insides of the multi-language form (http://www.123contactform.com/multi-language-form/) feature. The entire system is based on the ability of any user to add translations to the fields of his form in the supported languages. After that, the final form displays a tiny dropbox at the top-right corner which lets people choose the language they prefer, before they start to fill in the fields. The setup process of a multi-lingual form on 123ContactForm is as follows: 

• In the Settings > Translations section of the form, the user can choose one or more languages to integrate with the form. 
• Next, he chooses the Customize option for each language, which opens a lightbox with the matching fields in English and in the preferred foreign language, where he can enter the corresponding translations. Everything can be translated, from field labels to the system message pertaining to the functionality of the form such as “This field is required” or “Submitting form... please wait...”. 
• The final act - Save. From this moment, all translations are available in the user’s account so that the guy can use them in any other forms he creates. Pretty simple and above all, highly flexible. 

My first thought was that the amount of work is a bit too big, to translate every form string by hand. However, this also means you have extra customizing options and full control over your form, as you can create translations in your own words, not use the standard impersonal ones. And in fact it takes just 5 minutes or so to have a fully translated form on your webpage.