Try using an email-based form instead (Score 2, Insightful)

I would agree with other posters that OCR will not solve your problem. I would also agree with you that having people sit in front of a computer for long periods is not a good idea.

I have created a system to help in reviewing proposed changes to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species(CITES)which sends out a formatted email form to reviewers (many of whom are in developng countries). The reviewers reply with their answers and a simple RegEx sucks the answers into a database.

Benefits of this approach:

• Iterative- users can return to their email program several times before completing and sending the form. You don't have to complete in one sitting (our questionnaire is about 150 detailed questions long)
• Offline- for users that don't have a dedicated net connection (yes they exist)
• Transaction based- you know that an email has been successfully sent
• Lowtech- a text based email is a kind of lowest common denominator. You don't have problems with plug-ins or JRE versions with this solution

This kind of thing is easy to build. The tricky part is predicting what users will do with it. In our forms the questions look like-
||Please tell us your shoe size::
||What color are your shoes?::
The directions originally told users to enter data between the :: after a question and the || before the next question. Result: many of them answered like
||Please tell us your show size:My size is twelve:
and caused the RegEx to miss the answer.

Best of luck