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…
- Do you really need an Other Comments box?
- Is there a better, more constrained field you can use?
- Do you need to capture the text or will an image do?
- Is the captured text any use to anyone anyway?
- Can you categorise responses?
- Can you use predictive typing or prefill?