Why the field type is the first decision
Every question on a form starts with the same choice: which field type to use. The type controls three things at once — the control a respondent interacts with, the validation that decides which answers get accepted, and the shape of your results afterwards. An Email field rejects malformed addresses on the spot; a Date field guarantees a real calendar date; the same questions asked through a plain text box guarantee nothing, and you inherit the cleanup.
tuyaform's form builder offers 29 field types in four palette groups: Text, Choice, Advanced, and Layout. This guide walks through all of them with one practical question in mind — which type should this question use? The rule up front: pick the most specific type that fits, because every constraint the field enforces is a mistake your results never contain.
Text fields: words, names and numbers
Short text is the workhorse for one-line answers; Long text opens a paragraph box for anything longer. Both can enforce minimum and maximum character counts — useful for making sure 'describe the issue' gets a real description, not a single letter. Number accepts only numeric input and can carry a minimum, maximum and step.
Three structured types spare you from parsing text later. Full name collects first and last name separately; a required full name needs both. Address collects street lines, city, state, postal code and country; when required it insists on street, city and country, leaving state and postal code optional — plenty of the world's addresses have neither. Email, Phone and Website validate the shape of the answer — a well-formed email, a plausible international phone number, a web address with or without the https:// — so typos surface while the respondent can still fix them. Text-style fields can also carry a prefilled default value.
Choice fields: when you know the answers
Multiple choice shows every option at once and takes exactly one pick — right when the list is short and you want all options seen. Dropdown asks the same question in a compact control, better once the list grows long. Checkboxes accepts several picks and can require between a minimum and maximum number of selections. Yes/No is the two-option special case respondents answer without thinking about the interface. On multiple choice, checkboxes and dropdown you can also enable a free-text 'Other' option and shuffle the option order per viewer.
Four specialized relatives finish the group. Ranking asks respondents to put every option in order of preference — a complete ordering, not a partial one. Matrix (grid) crosses rows with columns so people rate several items on one shared scale in a single compact question. Country is a ready-made picker of the world's countries, names shown in the respondent's language and stored consistently. Image choice is multiple choice where each option carries a picture — ideal when the options are visual by nature.
Advanced fields: dates, money, ratings — and a payment button
Date, Time and Date & time use proper pickers and accept only values that exist — February 30 is rejected, not rolled over — and a date field can restrict answers to a window, like appointments within the next month. Rating shows a row of 2 to 10 stars (5 by default). Opinion scale is a numeric scale with endpoints you choose, such as 0–10, plus optional labels for each end — the standard build for NPS-style questions.
Currency collects a money amount with the right symbol — USD, EUR, GBP, CAD, AUD, MXN, BRL and JPY are supported — allowing up to two decimals and no negatives. Payment is different in kind: it shows a fixed amount and a Pay button that links out to your own payment page. tuyaform never processes or holds the money and stores no answer for this field — a clearly signposted hand-off, not a checkout.
Signature fields on a form — and when to use the signing flow instead
The Signature field lets a respondent sign right on the form, by drawing with a finger or mouse or by typing their name in a signature style. The signature is saved as an image with the rest of the response, timestamped, and validated on our servers like every other answer. It shines wherever many people must acknowledge the same thing through one link: consents, waivers, registrations, policy acknowledgments.
Be honest about stakes, though. Laws like the US ESIGN Act and UETA and the EU's eIDAS recognize electronic signatures when intent and attribution can be shown, and a signature field supports both — as a Simple Electronic Signature. But a form response does not produce a sealed PDF, a Certificate of Completion, or a full audit trail. When a document carries real legal or financial weight, send it for signature through the signing flow instead, which generates all three. Our guides on collecting signatures on a form and on audit trails draw that line in detail.
Structure, logic and validation
Five layout types organize everything: Section heading introduces a group of questions, Text block holds instructions or terms, Image banner shows a picture between questions, Divider draws a visual break, and Page break splits the form into steps. Layout fields collect no answers and are never required.
Any answer-collecting field can carry conditional logic: show this field only when another field has any answer, equals a value, or does not equal it. A hidden field is skipped entirely — never validated, never stored — so respondents only face questions that apply to them. Fields start out optional; you flip Required per field, deliberately.
Validation runs twice by design: instantly in the browser for immediate feedback, and again on our servers, whose verdict is the one that counts — a crafted submission cannot sneak an invalid answer past the browser. Forms scale to 200 fields and choice fields to 100 options; if you are brushing those limits, you probably want two shorter forms.
Choosing well, and what it costs
A few heuristics from watching forms work: ask fewer, more specific questions; switch multiple choice to dropdown past six or so options; reserve checkboxes for questions where several answers are genuinely valid at once; use one matrix instead of five identical scale questions; and treat ranking as the expensive question it is — a full ordering demands real effort, so spend it where order truly matters.
If the form is a quiz, note which types are scorable: multiple choice, dropdown and yes/no can carry a correct answer and points in quiz mode — our quiz guide covers scoring end to end. And if you would rather not start from a blank page, the templates gallery on our site offers ready-made forms you can edit field by field.
All 29 field types are free — forms and responses are unlimited on the free plan, which is ad-supported, and ads never appear on the page where people fill out your form. The free plan's monthly metering applies only to emailed signature invitations, which forms don't consume.