Formrain

Formrain is a concept in the field of web form design and management that describes a framework for building dynamic, accessible, and context-aware forms. It centers on a declarative form schema that governs field generation, validation, layout, and behavior, enabling forms to adapt in real time to user input and environmental factors such as device type, locale, and privacy settings.

Originated in discussions among web developers and UX researchers in the early 2020s, formrain emerged as a term to capture the idea of rainfall-like progressive disclosure of form fields. While not tied to a single project, it has been used to describe a family of approaches and tooling aimed at reducing cognitive load and improving data quality through adaptive forms.

Technical approach: Formrain relies on a machine-readable schema, typically expressed in JSON or YAML, that defines fields, validation rules, dependencies, and layout hints. A rendering engine translates the schema into interactive UI components, while a runtime validator enforces rules and provides contextual feedback. The system can fetch data from APIs to populate options and supports accessibility standards such as proper labeling and keyboard navigation.

Key features include conditional logic that reveals or hides fields, real-time validation, responsive layouts, localization support, and plugin extensions for analytics, anti-spam measures, and theming. Data submitted through a form built with formrain can be serialized to common formats and sent to back-end services with consistent normalization.

Applications span e-commerce, event registration, surveys, and data-collection portals where form complexity and accessibility requirements are high. Proponents argue that formrain reduces maintenance overhead by centralizing form logic, while critics note fragmentation and varying degree of adoption across ecosystems.

See also: Web forms, JSON Schema, progressive disclosure, accessibility in web design.