Open Handwritten Fields
This may be for giving respondents an extra unclassified option for a choice field:
For capturing a field too large to fit in as a constrained print field:
Or for capturing general comments:
Alternative Solutions
Whichever type of free text field you have on the form, capturing the data
from it can be a very manually intensive process. The first question you
must ask yourself when designing the form is can you use another field type
to capture the data? So in the first example, could you simply add “Yellow”
and “Black” to the choice field options? In the company name example, could
you add a second line using two constrained print fields and group them
using a data group?
Is The Captured Data Worthwhile?
If it is a more general “Other Comments” type field then you really need to
consider how you wish to use the captured data. Today’s technology isn’t
capable of reading jointed handwriting accurately, so capturing this kind
of information is going to require a large element of manual interaction,
the enemy of quick and efficient data capture!
The first thing to consider is once you have captured the data, is it going
to be of any use at all? For example, on a cinema customer satisfaction
survey, you might get respondents entering “The seats were too cramped” or
“The chairs were too small” and fifty other comments all meaning the same
thing, but written differently. Once you have this data in Excel, Access, SPSS etc it is completely useless from a statistical analysis point of view,
as you won’t be able to generate a graph of how many people thought the
seats were uncomfortable.
Capturing Images
If the data isn’t to be used for statistical analysis it might be needed for
review purposes. What we mean by this is that the comments are there purely
for someone to read and take on board. If TeleForm is being used in a small
department or company it is likely that the operator of the TeleForm system
will also be the person who needs to read the comments. If this is the case
it is often a workable solution for the field on the form just to be a
graphic box object with no recognition and the scanner operator can simply
read the comments as the pages are scanned.
If however the TeleForm operators are not the same people who need to review
the comments, perhaps in a bureau scenario, it may be important to get the
comments sent to another department or location. Rather than capture the
writing as data a much more efficient solution would be to capture an image
of the writing and pass this on to the reviewers.
At the most basic level it would then be possible to pass a CD on to the
reviewer with all the completed Other Comments boxes which could be viewed
and read from the original handwriting. Better still, if these images where
uploaded to eStore the reviewer could generate printable reports based on
search criteria such as “all the other comments from male respondents aged
between 18 and 65”.
Capture Zones (SKFI)
If the Other Comments are not just simply for review purposes there are
several ways of capturing the information without having to resort to
manually keying every single letter in. The first option is to categorise or
code the responses using a Capture Zone.
This allows the TeleForm operator to look at the handwritten response and
then summarise the information in to one of a pre-defined list of options.
Whilst this does mean that every completed Other Comments box will require
human interaction it will at least only be two mouse clicks or key strokes. It is also possible to combine a categorising system with a free text entry
field so that if the TeleForm operator can’t find a suitable category they
can type the data in verbose.
Predictive Typing
If the data being captured is a more restricted response, such as a company
name field, it is possible to utilise predictive typing.
If the “Completion” option above is ticked, as soon as the TeleForm operator
enters the first character it will perform a lookup to a database and predict
what the operator is typing, refining its prediction with each further character
entered. In most cases it will find a positive match within two or three
keystrokes allowing the operator to accept it and move on to the next form in
only a couple of key strokes. It is possible to export the final value to
the lookup database so it will learn new entries if they aren’t already in
the database. Obviously this isn’t suitable for open ended Other Comments
boxes, but will save a lot of time capturing data from Existing forms or
fields where you can’t use Constrained Print fields.
Lastly, using the Prefill tab on a Capture Zone can help save a few key
strokes, especially if you are processing a batch of forms that are all from
the same respondent.
For example a temp completing his work timesheets for the month will submit
four or five timesheets one after the other with the same company name on
each. Selecting the “Prefill With Last” option will save the operator having
to enter the data for each timesheet.
So Ask Yourself…
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Do you really need an Other Comments box?
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Is there a better, more constrained field you can use?
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Do you need to capture the text or will an image do?
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Is the captured text any use to anyone anyway?
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Can you categorise responses?
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Can you use predictive typing or prefill?