Details make me smile.  This week we are looking some small details in our new website we’re launching at Liquid.  I was reminded by Seth Godin last month that good user experience is important on our websites! I’d love your feedback as we roll out our new site!

We drive people to LiquidChurch.com to sign up for everything.  If you listened to us talk during announcements we are constantly asking people to drop by our website to find out more information and sign up.  Listen to this recent announcement to count up the times we asked people to do it!  [2 Min Video Link]

Forms are a big deal detail for us in this new web site.  In our previous iteration of our site we used the design firm’s “form maker” which allowed the forms to look pretty but the information wasn’t easy to work with when people entered the information.  I’ve liked working with Google Docs forms because all the information gets entered into an online spreadsheet that we can access and manipulate as people enter it.  However, the forms look junky, we can’t do “autoreplies” when people submit the form and the “success pages” are just not pretty!

A few month ago Lauren (our web guru and a crazy cake maker) found this fantastic tool called Form Stack.  Here are just a few of the reasons we are using it all over our new site:

• Sexy Looking Forms! We can integrate the look of the forms to make them match the design of our site better . . . better fit and finish with our over all approach to design!
• Intelligent Auto Replies! We can now email back people a smart email autoresponder based on what they say in the form.  Interested in serving on our Roadies team?  Great! Once you fill in the form selecting that team the system can send you an email from the team leader with specific next steps to take to get connected.  This also applies to the “success pages” . . . they look great and are customizable based on the content asked for!
• Google Docs Integration! To top it all off . . . it sits on top of Google Docs so all the information is still published into an open spreadsheet that we can all see and work with.  I love that.

I know . . . it’s kinda geeky.  But when I first saw this solution in action I literally jumped up and down. We want to reduce all the friction possible on these forms and I am pumped to see them in action as we roll out the new site in the coming weeks!

What makes great web forms for you and your organization?  I’d love to see some examples!

On Friday this week I’m going to look at some changes we made to the giving side of our new site.  Subscribe to the blog through email and you’ll get exclusive bonus content.