Improve "Membership Application" form page

[anaulin]

Based on testing of the application flow, we should improve the following things:

Intro text:

• (Remove feature for previewing unsubmitted applications and clarify intro text in application form. #714) change explanatory text about visibility of applications; it should make clear that the application will be visible while applications are open, but not forever (i.e. the application will become internally hidden after it is accepted / rejected)
• (Remove feature for previewing unsubmitted applications and clarify intro text in application form. #714) remove explanatory text about markdown, as that seems confusing

Throughout the application:

• (Use consistent language and punctuation on application pages. #687) fix consistency of "optional" and "required" markers, make sure they are all parenthesized (or not parenthesized) and exist on all fields

Social media links:

• (Move block of social media links to the bottom of the application form. #713) put block of social media links at the bottom of the form, after the Big Questions; add an explanatory text saying that these links are for us to get to know the applicants better
• switch Twitter username field to Twitter URL field, for consistency with the other social media fields - people sometimes put in a URL there already, which breaks the URL for application reviewers
• replace "Website URL" label with "Other URL", so that applicants can add whatever URL they think might help us get to know them

Input boxes:

• (Update question text based on last week's review #571) make the form input elements for the Big Questions larger, to make it clear that we expect non-trivial amount of text
• if possible, add a character counter for each box, so that applicant knows how much they've typed and how many more characters can fit in each response
• make the font a tad smaller in the input boxes (right now it seems the input elements have larger font than the labels, which feels odd)

Question wording:

• (Update question text based on last week's review #571) in the "definition of feminism" question, update the portion about "have you encountered frustrations" to be open-ended, instead of a yes-or-no question, by adding "...and how does that inform your perspective on feminism?" or similar wording
• workshop the wording of the last question (the one about "have we met you?"

Checkboxes at the end:

• (Update checkbox about assumptions, benefits, and responsibilities in application form. #715) link directly to "Benefits and responsibilities" section of "Membership" public page (right now we just link to the page, and the applicant has to scroll down to the correct section; this is also related to updating that text itself, tracked here: Improve "Membership benefits and responsibilities" text doubleunion-dot-org#110
• (Update checkbox about assumptions, benefits, and responsibilities in application form. #715) update that checkbox to have people acknowledge that they've read the "Benefits and responsibilities" section and the Base Assumptions (right now we ask people to say they understand the "benefits and responsibilities", but it's actually ok if people don't fully understand them yet, as long as they're ok with the overall ideas there!)

Preview functionality:

• (Remove feature for previewing unsubmitted applications and clarify intro text in application form. #714) get rid of the confusing "preview" thing at the bottom, which doesn't work if you don't do "Save without submitting" first; leave it with just "Save without submitting" and "Submit"
• (Remove feature for previewing unsubmitted applications and clarify intro text in application form. #714) similarly, remove the "preview" link from the intro text at the top of the page - it's confusing for the same reason

Timeline of application:

• at the beginning of the application, the banner says that the application period will end on x date and you need to have submitted your application by then - but we're planning to have a rolling application period instead of specific membership drives - so we need to rethink that part.
• also at the end, it says you can edit your application until applications close. But similarly, we won't have a specific membership drive close date. We need to make that more specific - that you can edit your application until DU makes a decision on it (accepted/rejected).

(Some of these things might make sense to split off into their own tickets. Feel free to do so if you want to work on just a portion of this.)

@brittag please add your own notes / screenshots to this

[brittag]

@anaulin Updated with more details + chunked into sections, thank you!

[sarahwalters]

I noticed the inconsistencies in the "optional" and "required" markers in #487 and fixed in #687.

Will work on the rest of this!