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Very nice product! That said, > Partial submissions > Collect answers from people who filled in a part of your form, but didn’t click the submit button. Capt

by oefrha 5y ago

Very nice product! That said, > Partial submissions > Collect answers from people who filled in a part of your form, but didn’t click the submit button. Capture data from lost leads, find drop off points and improve your conversion rates. From a user point of view, I really hate this. I’d say collecting data about drop off points is fine, but secretly collecting answers not intended for submission is a dark pattern that violates an implicit social contract and users’ privacy. Hell, people often accidentally paste in private stuff, including passwords. I can understand that as a form builder product you probably need to offer this feature or lose customers. Add this to the long list of depressing “features” of the modern web.

SamBam 5y ago
+1. Collecting personal information such as real names, payments, phone numbers, etc. on users without their explicit consent (hitting a submit button) is absolutely unethical.
- stronglikedan 5y ago
  just add, "anything you type into our forms may be captured". explicit consent, one and done
  - flowerbreeze 5y ago
    I don't think that would qualify as explicit consent. According to GDPR consent would have to be: "freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject's wishes by which he or she, by a statement or by a clear affirmative action, signifies agreement to the processing of personal data relating to him or her." How could "anything you type into our forms may be captured" be construed as a clear affirmative action by the person entering data into the form that has a submit button for submitting the data? Also, to make it unambiguous and informed, it would at least have to be a very-very obvious statement, which would make it useless for the sneaky purposes, wouldn't it? Edit: I know it's not only GDPR that is being discussed, but I think would follow the same definition.
    - monkeydust 5y ago
      Yea unfortunately I agree and stops me using it at least in a corporate capacity which would have been a paid for account. May use for personal use though, for free.
1p1e1 5y ago
I do agree with your point. It was a highly requested feature, indeed. It's available only with our Pro plan, so it's not widely available to everyone.
- cldellow 5y ago
  Maybe I misread the OP, but I took their point to be that the feature "violates [...] user's privacy." To say you agree, but it's OK because people pay you for it suggests that you don't really agree.
  - 1p1e1 5y ago
    That wasn't my point. I meant the feature is available to a very small subset of our users. Then even a smaller subset chooses to use it and I believe, it's up to the form creator to add a disclaimer on why this is necessary for their use case.
    - tomtheelder 5y ago
      I'm not usually a big privacy person, but the way you're responding to this is a dealbreaker. This feature is fundamentally unethical. The fact that it's paywalled and not everyone uses it changes nothing.
      - emteycz 5y ago
        How do you know it's not going to be used after the user explicitly accepts sharing data?
      - nawgz 5y ago
        > This feature is fundamentally unethical Consider an implementation of "draft" submissions. Imagine you wanted to implement such a feature on top of some form builder. You would require such a feature. I don't necessarily agree or disagree with the points raised on ethics here, but there's a very real consideration when you're offering a library/package/feature, sometimes you have to expose guts that can be used improperly in order to enable certain featuresets. I think it's obvious why someone building such a tool as OP would offer such a feature as is in discussion, because they would lose money otherwise from implementations that require this feature. So, if a subset of things that can be done with your work are nefarious, how much effort are you meant to put in to make it ethical to sell your work? Is it inherently always unethical to build a tool which can be used to nefarious ends?
satya71 5y ago
Thanks for pointing that out. I’ll block Tally using uBlock.
mattkevan 5y ago
This is a terrible idea - the data isn’t yours until it’s been explicitly given. A few years ago I was the UX lead at a big uk website. At the time, the commercial team were wanting to steal unsubmitted personal data from forms and just couldn’t grasp why it was so wrong. I’d been fighting them on it for ages, but thankfully a few other large sites got into trouble for doing it and I was able to convince the business that the reputational damage wasn’t worth whatever value we might glean from it. Our users were savvy, privacy conscious and extremely vocal and would have gone mental if it came out we were doing it too. Couldn’t believe it was even a conversation I needed to have.
- jklinger410 5y ago
  > This is a terrible idea - the data isn’t yours until it’s been explicitly given. I couldn't disagree more. I think the owner of a website should be able to track whatever information they please about your session.
  - mattkevan 5y ago
    It’s one thing to track how users are using forms and seeing where they drop out, for example on a checkout. It’s another thing entirely to save the data from those fields. Collecting personally identifying information without explicit consent seems like a great way to get into trouble. Implied consent is no consent at all.
  - rmbyrro 5y ago
    Would you also support Wallmart following you around their store, keeping track of which isles you walked, which way you looked, conversations you had with your spouse next to you as you shopped, etc? It's their store. They should be entitled to own everything about you when you walk into their store, right?
    - kingcharles 5y ago
      I mean, Walmart almost certainly do track everyone's movement around their stores to see how to improve their conversion rates. When I worked for UK financial company we would track how far people were going through our form wizard to see where the paint points were. The personal information never left the web page, but it would report back telemetry telling us how many people dropped out at each stage. That helped us to do split testing, e.g. does this label make more people fill out the form, etc.
pedalpete 5y ago
I'm not sure I understand here this issue. When I'm using typeform, and I click "next" or scroll to the next question, I've always assumed that has meant "submit this answer". I don't consider the entire thing a form, and at some point I may go "ok, I'm done answering your questions, I don't want to do this anymore", and I leave. I don't assume at that point that nothing has happened. I answered a bunch of questions and gave you the data. Do other people really look at this UI as if it was a single form, rather than a submit per entry?
- jono_wilson 5y ago
  I agree with you, that's how I viewed it. I've distributed typeform in the past and thought it would have been nice and acceptable to record partial answers given that each step feels like a submission; kind of like if I enter my shipping address in step 1 of a checkout process, it is stored once I move to the billing address in step 2.
- SamBam 5y ago
  > Do other people really look at this UI as if it was a single form, rather than a submit per entry? I don't understand why you would necessarily think that. The forms can be styled to look like regular forms, with multiple fields per page. E.g. this registration form: https://tally.so/create?templateId=ywaZnM https://tally.so/create?templateId=ywaZnM I took the above warning as saying that if I type my first name in the first field, then change my mind and go away without submitting anything, then they record my first name. My actions (leaving after I typed in something, without hitting submit) would in no way look like I intended to submit an entry. While I think your expectation that there are other forms that do this is possibly valid, I don't think that many other forms I encounter every day do do this, and I would be grossed out if they did.

by oefrha 5y ago

SamBam 5y ago

+1. Collecting personal information such as real names, payments, phone numbers, etc. on users without their explicit consent (hitting a submit button) is absolutely unethical.

stronglikedan 5y ago
just add, "anything you type into our forms may be captured". explicit consent, one and done
- flowerbreeze 5y ago
  I don't think that would qualify as explicit consent. According to GDPR consent would have to be: "freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject's wishes by which he or she, by a statement or by a clear affirmative action, signifies agreement to the processing of personal data relating to him or her." How could "anything you type into our forms may be captured" be construed as a clear affirmative action by the person entering data into the form that has a submit button for submitting the data? Also, to make it unambiguous and informed, it would at least have to be a very-very obvious statement, which would make it useless for the sneaky purposes, wouldn't it? Edit: I know it's not only GDPR that is being discussed, but I think would follow the same definition.
  - monkeydust 5y ago
    Yea unfortunately I agree and stops me using it at least in a corporate capacity which would have been a paid for account. May use for personal use though, for free.

1p1e1 5y ago

I do agree with your point. It was a highly requested feature, indeed. It's available only with our Pro plan, so it's not widely available to everyone.

cldellow 5y ago
Maybe I misread the OP, but I took their point to be that the feature "violates [...] user's privacy." To say you agree, but it's OK because people pay you for it suggests that you don't really agree.
- 1p1e1 5y ago
  That wasn't my point. I meant the feature is available to a very small subset of our users. Then even a smaller subset chooses to use it and I believe, it's up to the form creator to add a disclaimer on why this is necessary for their use case.
  - tomtheelder 5y ago
    I'm not usually a big privacy person, but the way you're responding to this is a dealbreaker. This feature is fundamentally unethical. The fact that it's paywalled and not everyone uses it changes nothing.
    - emteycz 5y ago
      How do you know it's not going to be used after the user explicitly accepts sharing data?
    - nawgz 5y ago
      > This feature is fundamentally unethical Consider an implementation of "draft" submissions. Imagine you wanted to implement such a feature on top of some form builder. You would require such a feature. I don't necessarily agree or disagree with the points raised on ethics here, but there's a very real consideration when you're offering a library/package/feature, sometimes you have to expose guts that can be used improperly in order to enable certain featuresets. I think it's obvious why someone building such a tool as OP would offer such a feature as is in discussion, because they would lose money otherwise from implementations that require this feature. So, if a subset of things that can be done with your work are nefarious, how much effort are you meant to put in to make it ethical to sell your work? Is it inherently always unethical to build a tool which can be used to nefarious ends?

satya71 5y ago

Thanks for pointing that out. I’ll block Tally using uBlock.

mattkevan 5y ago

This is a terrible idea - the data isn’t yours until it’s been explicitly given. A few years ago I was the UX lead at a big uk website. At the time, the commercial team were wanting to steal unsubmitted personal data from forms and just couldn’t grasp why it was so wrong. I’d been fighting them on it for ages, but thankfully a few other large sites got into trouble for doing it and I was able to convince the business that the reputational damage wasn’t worth whatever value we might glean from it. Our users were savvy, privacy conscious and extremely vocal and would have gone mental if it came out we were doing it too. Couldn’t believe it was even a conversation I needed to have.

jklinger410 5y ago
> This is a terrible idea - the data isn’t yours until it’s been explicitly given. I couldn't disagree more. I think the owner of a website should be able to track whatever information they please about your session.
- mattkevan 5y ago
  It’s one thing to track how users are using forms and seeing where they drop out, for example on a checkout. It’s another thing entirely to save the data from those fields. Collecting personally identifying information without explicit consent seems like a great way to get into trouble. Implied consent is no consent at all.
- rmbyrro 5y ago
  Would you also support Wallmart following you around their store, keeping track of which isles you walked, which way you looked, conversations you had with your spouse next to you as you shopped, etc? It's their store. They should be entitled to own everything about you when you walk into their store, right?
  - kingcharles 5y ago
    I mean, Walmart almost certainly do track everyone's movement around their stores to see how to improve their conversion rates. When I worked for UK financial company we would track how far people were going through our form wizard to see where the paint points were. The personal information never left the web page, but it would report back telemetry telling us how many people dropped out at each stage. That helped us to do split testing, e.g. does this label make more people fill out the form, etc.

pedalpete 5y ago

I'm not sure I understand here this issue. When I'm using typeform, and I click "next" or scroll to the next question, I've always assumed that has meant "submit this answer". I don't consider the entire thing a form, and at some point I may go "ok, I'm done answering your questions, I don't want to do this anymore", and I leave. I don't assume at that point that nothing has happened. I answered a bunch of questions and gave you the data. Do other people really look at this UI as if it was a single form, rather than a submit per entry?

jono_wilson 5y ago
I agree with you, that's how I viewed it. I've distributed typeform in the past and thought it would have been nice and acceptable to record partial answers given that each step feels like a submission; kind of like if I enter my shipping address in step 1 of a checkout process, it is stored once I move to the billing address in step 2.
SamBam 5y ago
> Do other people really look at this UI as if it was a single form, rather than a submit per entry? I don't understand why you would necessarily think that. The forms can be styled to look like regular forms, with multiple fields per page. E.g. this registration form: https://tally.so/create?templateId=ywaZnM https://tally.so/create?templateId=ywaZnM I took the above warning as saying that if I type my first name in the first field, then change my mind and go away without submitting anything, then they record my first name. My actions (leaving after I typed in something, without hitting submit) would in no way look like I intended to submit an entry. While I think your expectation that there are other forms that do this is possibly valid, I don't think that many other forms I encounter every day do do this, and I would be grossed out if they did.