Progressbar skippes forward and backward

That’s not, what he meant, @Liz . I have the same problem. I have 60 questions and on question 3 the progress bar shows half way done. I move forward in the questions and the progress bar skips back. I’m just going forward in the questions and it skips back and forward all the time.

@Dustin - i believe it takes into calculation/consideration the various logic paths that a user could take through the paths of questions. if you move someone onto a path that now has 3 questions remaining or a path that has 20 possible questions remaining, you would have variable ‘progress’ to completion.. 

just my thought

des

@john.desborough thank you for your answer. But I don’t have a logic path with less than 50 questions. But the progress bar shows half way done at question 3. 

Hi @Dustin I’ve answered you in your other thread. 😀

Hi all, I’m a long-time typeform user, but I’ve never posted to these community pages before.

I had to jump on though to second @Dustin’s point that the progress bar going backwards is definitely undesired behavior from a respondent’s point of view. ‘Backwards progress’ is never fun in life, or when filling in a form. It’s not just my opinion, my clients always complain about the progress bar going backwards when reviewing their surveys prior to fielding. This issue is so bad that I now always turn the progress bar off and instead have to resort to piping people through multiple forms where i can inject messages saying they’ve “completed the 3rd part” etc. at each thank you page. (my current record is an 8 part survey btw).

@Liz, I’ve seen your response to Dustin on his original post and feel that sharing a video about branching logic doesn’t hit the mark. Nor does telling @DemokratieBegeisterte that this is ‘expected behavior’.

Dustin shared a link to his form which demonstrated this undesired progress bar behavior, and you claimed you couldn’t recreate the behavior. Well, it’s definitely there. Please see this video link for proof. https://app.screencast.com/QdIgK9M3UfzIx

@john.desborough, I don’t know the mechanics of the progress bar, but I feel you’re probably very close to being right. I think the answer to this problem may be to look at ALL of the possible logic paths in a form, from the beginning to the end, choose the longest path, and then measure progress against that longest path. If the form did that, respondents would always be making progress. Sometimes it would be big jumps, sometimes small jumps, but never backwards. And that is the key, never backwards.

@Liz, can you share any insight into how we get this escalated so that the TF devs have a proper look at this?

Thanks,

Tom

Hi @Tom Davenport Thanks for stopping by and sharing your feedback. At the moment, our forms will allow respondents to move backwards and forwards in the form, so you would need to utilize the workarounds referenced above. I can certainly share your request to our product team, though I can’t guarantee that this is a feature they will build. 

As always, we’ll post any updates in the community here!

Hi @Liz, thanks for coming back to me. Maybe I’m missing something, how can the work-arounds posted prevent the progress bar from going backwards? Also, this problem exists even if respondents navigate straight through the form (ie they don’t go back and forth).  I’m marking this one definitely ‘Not Solved’

I believe our (@john.desborough @DemokratieBegeisterte @Dustin and I’m sure others’) collective point is the progress bar should never go backwards except if the respondent navigates backwards in the form. 

The good news is that I think I’ve figured out a framework for solving this issue! Check out this video explainer. https://app.screencast.com/wV3Eai7xk0Xvi

The bad news is this took a while to put together, and I only accept payment in beer and/or tapas. 🤣

Cheers,

Tom

Hi @Tom Davenport While we don’t have any workarounds for preventing a respondent from moving backwards in a form, we have shared this feedback with the product team. 😁

And thanks for sharing your ideas! It seems like an in-person meetup with beer and tapas sounds like it needs to happen…

@James @Grace 👀

@Liz, Thanks for the reply. I really appreciate you sharing my feedback with the product team and I’m looking forward the chance to get back to Barcelona someday. It’s one of my favorite cities anywhere!

I do want to clarify one point though. I have no problem with respondents moving backwards in a form. My issue is solely with the Progress Bar moving backward as the respondent progresses through the form.

Cheers,

Tom

@Tom Davenport - actually i am in disagreement with you on the progress bar. 

My preference is that the logic path the user is on gives them the current percent to complete. If they change to a different path, the progress bar should reflect the change. 

You set an ‘estimated time to complete' at the front end to give the user a sense of how long it will take them to go through the longest path. But I prefer to know “how much further” along the path i am currently on… 

that’s my opinion, to which i am entitled. as you are to yours.

des

Hey @john.desborough, 

Hmmm… I must have explained it poorly then, because how you just described it is exactly what I am thinking. 

Could you help me with something though? I’ve been making assumptions about what other people, like yourself, are thinking. Could you clarify whether you are ok with a progress bar going backwards as a respondent moves forward through the form or not?

If enough of us agree that this is an issue, and the TF team concurs, I’m sure they have plenty of talented devs who can figure the best way to implement it.

Tom

@Tom Davenport - this isn’t an issue me. leave it as it is.