Short Answer

Free feature

Short answer is available to all Fomr users.

The Short Answer component provides a single-line text field for collecting brief responses from your form respondents. It’s one of the most commonly used form components.

When to use Short Answer

Short Answer is ideal for collecting:

• Names (first name, last name, full name)
• Job titles or roles
• Company or organization names
• Brief descriptions or summaries
• Single-word or short phrase responses
• Any text that fits on one line

Tip

If you need to collect longer, multi-line responses, use the Long Answer component instead.

Adding a Short Answer component

1. Open your form in the editor

2. Drag the Short Answer component from the left sidebar onto your form

3. Click the component to select it and configure its settings

Configuration options

Question label

The main question or prompt displayed above the input field. This tells respondents what information you’re asking for.

Tips for effective labels:

• Be clear and specific about what you’re asking
• Keep it concise but descriptive
• Use sentence case for readability

Examples:

• “What is your full name?”
• “Job title”
• “Company name”

Description

Optional helper text that appears below the question label. Use this to provide additional context, instructions, or examples.

When to use descriptions:

• To clarify what format you expect
• To provide examples of valid responses
• To explain why you’re asking for this information

Examples:

• “Please enter your name as it appears on official documents”
• “e.g., Marketing Manager, Software Engineer”

Placeholder

Ghost text that appears inside the input field when it’s empty. Placeholders disappear when the user starts typing.

Best practices for placeholders:

• Show an example of the expected format
• Keep it short and helpful
• Don’t use placeholders as a replacement for labels

Examples:

• “John Smith”
• “Enter your company name”
• “e.g., Product Designer”

Required

Toggle whether this field must be filled out before the form can be submitted.

When enabled:

• An asterisk (*) appears next to the question label
• Users cannot submit the form without providing a response
• A validation message appears if they try to skip the field

Tips

• Match the component to the expected response length — Short Answer works best for responses under 100 characters. For longer responses, use Long Answer.
• Use clear, specific labels — “Name” is ambiguous—use “Full name” or “First name” to be clear about what you need.
• Provide examples when helpful — If there’s a specific format you expect, show an example in the placeholder or description.
• Consider whether it should be required — Only mark components as required if you truly need the information to process the submission.
• Keep forms focused — Don’t ask for information you don’t need. Each additional component reduces completion rates.

Validation

Short Answer provides basic text validation:

• Required validation: Ensures the component isn’t empty when marked as required
• Text input: Accepts any text characters

For specialized validation (email format, URLs, numbers), use the dedicated components:

• Email for email addresses
• Link for URLs
• Number for numeric values
• Phone for phone numbers

Accessibility

The Short Answer component is built with accessibility in mind:

• Labels are properly associated with input fields
• Required fields are indicated both visually and to screen readers
• Error messages are announced to assistive technologies
• Keyboard navigation is fully supported