Overview

Formstack - Advanced PDF Exports

Formstack made it easy to build custom forms without code. But once teams collected data, it was hard to turn that data into useful documents. Creating custom exports often required technical skills or extra tools, like third-party integrations. This limited how enterprise teams could use their data.

PDF exports were an important part of the product, but limited customization and usability reduced their value and adoption.

I redesigned the export experience to match how customers actually use their data. This made exports more flexible and opened up new ways for teams to use them.

Project Snapshot

• Scope: End-to-end redesign
• Focus: Data exports & downstream workflows
• Team: 1 designer, PM, 3 engineers
• Role: Lead product designer

Impact

This work:

• Informed a broader enterprise roadmap
• Closed key competitive gaps in export functionality
  
• Highlighted infrastructure gaps that led to WebMerge acquisition
• Positioned Formstack to compete in document automation
• Better supported how customers use Formstack data outside the platform

The exported PDF file looks even worse. I can’t believe it is not possible to even see my logo in the submitted forms. There should be a way to make it look decent. I can’t just hand this to a customer.

Overview

Problem

Customers needed to generate professional, branded PDFs from form data, but the existing experience was rigid, unattractive, and difficult to customize.

This created friction for:

• Enterprise workflows
• Customer-facing documents
• Integrations and automation

The existing PDF export experience created friction at a critical moment in the workflow:

• Outputs were difficult to scan due to poor hierarchy
• Users had no control over formatting or content
• Competitors offered more flexible export options
• Customers relied on PDFs to communicate externally, but the outputs weren’t presentation-ready

A core feature meant to extend the value of collected data was instead creating friction and limiting how customers could use Formstack in real workflows.

Research

To understand how exports fit into broader workflows, I combined product analytics signals (feature requests and votes) with qualitative research:

• Analyzed 20+ feature requests representing 170 customer votes
• Interviewed 23 high-intent customers
• Conducted competitive analysis across 8 form platforms

This helped identify usability issues and gaps in how Formstack supported downstream data usage. 

Across interviews and competitive analysis, a pattern emerged: PDF exports were a primary way customers communicated data to others. Usability and customization weren’t “nice-to-haves,” they were essential for real-world use.

Fun Fact:

By using psychology, nudge techniques, and personalizing each email, I achieved a 100% response rate to my email invitations for user interviews. One participant, who was on vacation during our interview period, insisted on speaking with us the week he returned.
 

Design Principles

To guide the redesign, I defined a set of design principles based on research insights. These principles ensured the solution addressed the broader role PDFs played in customer workflows.

1. Design for control without complexity

Users needed flexibility, but not at the cost of usability.

• Introduced progressive disclosure and simplified settings
• Made customization powerful but approachable

2. Prioritize enterprise use cases

Research showed enterprise customers needed:

• Branding (logos, layout)
• Cleaner formatting
• Integration parity

I focused on enterprise readiness, not just feature parity.

3. Balance product and business constraints

Late-stage feature gating introduced pricing complexity.

• Designed tiered access patterns
• Maintained usability while supporting revenue strategy

Challenges

Designing for Scale

Not a feature, but a system-level shift:

• First feature built with the new design system
• Required coordination across product, design, and engineering
• Established patterns used in future features
• Expanded documentation to support scaling the system

Results

Outcome

• Reduced workflow steps (e.g., from 10 → 3 for some users)
• Increased customer satisfaction and usability
• Enabled enterprise-level customization and adoption
• Contributed to Formstack’s expansion into document automation (Formstack Documents)

Results

Impact

This work:

• Informed a broader enterprise roadmap
• Highlighted infrastructure gaps that led to WebMerge acquisition
• Positioned Formstack to compete in document automation