5.1 Case study: I-94W

 
Temporary entry to the United States of America is very straightforward for citizens of countries that are involved in the visa waiver program, unless you have been involved in various undesirable activities ...
 

Temporary visitors to the United States of America may enter without a valid visa if they carry the passport of a country involved in the US visa waiver programme. Such visitors must fill out a form called I-94W.

This form requests standard demographic information followed by a series of questions regarding engagement in various criminal activities. The latter list of questions is shown in Figure 5.1.

Figure 5.1: The top half of the back side of USCIS form I-94W, an application for a temporary VISA waiver for visitors to the United States.

Figure 5.2 shows an electronic form version of some of these questions. More specifically, it shows an HTML form; a web page containing interactive components that allow us to enter information.

Figure 5.2: An electronic form version of USCIS form I-94W (see Figure 5.1).

One advantages of the electronic form should be immediately obvious: the form only allows the user to select one of the countries currently participating in the visa waiver program. This improvement in the accuracy of data collection is one of the prime reasons for using an electronic form.

In this chapter we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using electronic forms for questionnaires like I-94W and for data entry in general. We will also learn how to create an electronic form by writing HTML code.

Paul Murrell

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