Website that does more than look good

April 17, 2023 11:22 AM

We use squarespace for a business website and we're happy with it--very easy to set-up and looks nice. Our problem is with the inability to create a form that generates responsive output, and it's gotten to the point that we're going to have to just start over with a different website. We are very confused about our best option. Details on what we need inside.

We need to get info from our customers on what they have, and then ask specific follow-up questions to narrow down choices. We then need to analyze that info to come up with a specific price.

The format would be something like: Check all that apply: Furniture, Appliances, Mattresses, etc (about 8 categories). If they check Appliances but not furniture, we'd present them with a list of say 10 appliances and find which they have. Once we've done that for all the categories they have, we'd then take those numbers and calculate a few different parameters--partially dependent on the customer's location--then from there we'd calculate a final price. We have it done in Excel and it works fine in calculating.

We hired a developer to add some quick code to the squarespace web form that did about 80% of what we need done. Problem is it's difficult to maintain/update and without the last 20% we cannot fully automate the process.

Our key requirements are for a well-designed information gathering interface, something we don't have to do a lot of maintenance on or rely on third parties to monitor, and the ability to update price parameters easily. We do not need online sales capability and we are not averse to hiring a developer to optimize/perfect but would prefer not to build from scratch, unless that is an absolute necessity.

Is there a website builder that a non-tech savvy person can use to create the above?

Any advice would be very much appreciated!

posted by limagringo to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

Best answer: I would look into Hubspot. You can do a lot of if/then stuff with their forms, and you should be able to integrate them pretty easily into a Squarespace site.
posted by jonathanhughes at 11:46 AM on April 17, 2023

Best answer: JotForm is really powerful and allows you to create forms with logic (e.g., if the user answers "Yes" to this question, then show these other questions, otherwise do this other thing). We use JotForm a lot at my workplace. You can't build your whole website using JotForm, but you can keep your existing site and just add a JotForm component to it.
posted by alex1965 at 12:24 PM on April 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Just use an external form service (Gravity Forms, Typeform, Formstack, etc) and embed the appropriate form in the appropriate part of your Squarespace website.

For example.
posted by dtjb at 1:00 PM on April 17, 2023 [2 favorites]