Archives Manager Britt-Unni Baggerød and IT Advisor Beate Bringe have spent years building digital forms for Moss Municipality, a Norwegian municipality of around 53,000 residents. They have designed, tested, adjusted and achieved impressive results. Above all, they have cracked the code on the groundwork it takes to build forms that deliver real value.

Here are their seven tips.

1. Understand your organization’s needs

The first thing to do is step back and look at the bigger picture. Britt-Unni explains that you cannot build a form without seeing it in the context of the whole organization.

“To get the full benefit from the forms you create, you need to understand your organization: both how it is run and how the employees actually work.”

Britt-Unni Baggerød

“If you don’t understand what the organization needs, you can miss important information that affects how the form should be built. Then you risk ending up with a form that doesn’t work well once submissions come in, because you overlooked important parts of the process,” she says.

2. Focus on purpose and simplicity

Don’t overcomplicate it! That is the next piece of advice from the team in Moss.

“Digital forms should make your work processes easier, not harder. That focus has to guide how you build them,” Britt-Unni says.

A common pitfall is focusing so much on designing an impressive form that you miss the goal. Britt-Unni recommends keeping the purpose in mind whenever you create a new form. Ask yourself: What do I want to achieve with this form?

“When the goal and the user are your starting point, the quality of the data you collect goes up. That’s when the benefits follow.”

3. Define a clear strategy

Every requirement that applies to data collection must be met. If you collect personal information, for example, you are required by privacy legislation to protect the user’s privacy.

Beate therefore recommends putting a strategy in place that is anchored across the whole organization. It should set clear guidelines for the entire process, from building the form to collecting and storing the data.

Moss Municipality uses the Interact+ platform from ACOS to design forms and automate data collection safely and securely. And how the tool is used day to day is no accident, Britt-Unni explains.

“When we started using Interact+, a small working group defined strategic guidelines for data collection. Among other things, the strategy answers these questions: Which channels should the forms be published in? When must we use our approved form platform to protect privacy? How do we meet our records retention obligations?”

Beate explains that the strategy is important for building awareness across the organization.

“It’s easy for colleagues to think they can just throw together a quick form. But then we can point to the guidelines and explain why the form has to be built in our approved platform, Interact+, to keep the data secure.”

Beate Bringe

4. Keep form building in a small, skilled team

Before the merger with the neighbouring municipality of Rygge in 2020, the former Moss Municipality had far more form builders. Looking back, Britt-Unni says that had a downside.

“When ‘everyone’ is allowed to build forms, regardless of their skills, the quality of both the forms and the data goes down. Not everyone has the knowledge needed to build forms, or an understanding of how a form affects the whole workflow.”

She gives the transfer of records to the archive as an example.

“In my experience, records management requirements weren’t properly considered when forms were built. So documents poured into our records management system, but the data wasn’t structured. That created a lot of extra work for us.”

That is why the new Moss Municipality chose to make form building a managed task for a small team. With clear ownership, it is also easier to apply the same standards to every form, such as plain-language guidelines and WCAG accessibility requirements.

“It works really well that the two of us build all the forms. That way, we make sure every form we deliver is of high quality,” Britt-Unni says.

Beate agrees and notes that colleagues rarely ask to build their own forms.

“We make sure we’re quick to help whenever someone needs a new form.”

She also adds a bonus tip:

“If more people need access to build forms, it’s important that they get proper training.”

5. Learn by doing

You never stop learning, Beate says. Once the basic skills and an understanding of the strategy are in place, learning by doing is the way to go.

“The best way to learn is to actually build forms and see what works for your organization. It’s a deliberate strategy for us.”

Britt-Unni points to the rollout of Interact+ as a good example. They started with a course run by ACOS, and then got straight to work.

“We chose to rebuild all our forms from scratch in Interact+. We simply treated rebuilding the forms as part of our training,” she says.

Beate adds that this way of learning has been very useful.

“When we get stuck building a form, we’re forced to try new solutions. For me, the biggest challenge has been building logic into the forms. It makes me think a bit differently. But it’s a great way to learn, and it also improves the quality of the form.”

6. “Steal” inspiration from others

If you’re stuck building a form, the advice is simple: get inspiration from your peers.

“Municipalities in Norway stay in close touch and are very good at sharing forms with each other,” Britt-Unni says.

They often look across municipal borders for inspiration. Beate admits that she “steals” with a clear conscience.

“If another municipality makes a form they’re happy with, and we don’t have one like it, I’ll freely borrow it. And they borrow from us. There’s a strong culture of sharing, and we think that’s great.”

Alongside generous peers, Beate and Britt-Unni value their close collaboration with ACOS.

“We got good follow-up from ACOS when we introduced Interact+, and we have a great working relationship today. We get quick help and good advice when we need it, and they always listen when we share feedback or ideas for new features.”

7. You’re not married to your forms!

Last but not least, Beate has an important reminder for all form builders out there:

“You’re not married to the forms you make! In a solution like Interact+, it’s easy to change a form or build new logic. So remember that it’s fine to ‘break up’ with your form and go in a new direction if it isn’t performing the way you want.”

Looking for more advice?

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