8 ms·

Show HN: Free Survey Creator

72 points by wallawe 12y ago

Bartweiss 12y ago
This looks fantastic - I like the design and obviously I like the free. The interface is much more attractive than the standard SurveyMonkey and Google Forms options. Two big questions come to mind. First, do you have or plan on an option for people who don't want to embed a survey but link to one outright? Second, do you expect to leave this up, and if it were to become heavily used do you have a plan for monetizing or are you willing to eat the hosting costs? I ask because with a bit of reassurance that it will stick around, this looks like a nice, clean tool I have regular use for.
- wallawe 12y ago
  My hope was to make this as clean and intuitive as possible from a UX standpoint, so I appreciate your feedback on the design. As far as future development goes, I hadn't actually thought about linking to one outright. I wanted to get feedback on this barebones version and go from there. Features in the pipeline right now are mobile responsiveness and multiple admins per account. I will have to look into what you recommended as well though. As far as monetization goes, I just wanted to build something cool that people use. I figure I can always set up some premium features down the road if hosting becomes too expensive but right now I'm willing to eat a couple hundred bucks a month.
  - zz1 12y ago
    Any plans on releasing the source code?
- krzrak 12y ago
  +1 for the idea of linking to the survey hosted on your server. That was the first use that I thought about.
cheepin 12y ago
Wow. This is really easy to use. I can definitely see myself using something like this. Thanks for sharing.
diggan 12y ago
It would be nice to see some examples more than a mockup on the landing page. Both of the builder and the way to fill out the survey. Is this strictly for surveys or also quizes and other related form-things? Edit: I see now this is for way smaller surveys than I thought. It's basically just a small widget you get from the service. Shameless plug, I work for Typeform (http://www.typeform.com http://www.typeform.com) where we have a incredibly UI for both building and filling in surveys/forms. Check it out if you're looking for a survery/form/quiz SaaS that have the biggest focus on UX/UI and for more complex forms.
- blumkvist 12y ago
  typeform is awesome!
  - diggan 12y ago
    I agree, it's pretty sweet! Doesn't stop people from downvoting me though.
    - squeaky-clean 12y ago
      It's not against the Show HN guidelines, but generally it is frowned upon to advertise your project/company on someone else's Show HN post. If you're offering advice, and linking to your own project as a reference to credibility, that's different. Your comment comes off a bit like "If you're looking for a real Survey webapp, forget this and check out mine!"
      - diggan 12y ago
        Hm, I see. It was more a reference to an alternative form application that serves a different audience. I'll have what you said in mind from now on. Thanks for explaining the reason to me!
- jurre 12y ago
  The landing page is actually an interactive survey builder though.. And quite nice at that.
monkey_slap 12y ago
This is a little off topic, but the detail of updating the reflection when you select radios on the landing page is really slick.
- wallawe 12y ago
  Thanks! I thought it was a cool little effect, though not supported in any browsers but chrome unfortunately. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/-webkit-box-reflect https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/-webkit-box...
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
jgalt212 12y ago
What's the latest on Survey Monkey? They have raised insane amounts of cash. http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/17/surveymonkey-raises-800m-to-give-shareholders-back-some-love/ http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/17/surveymonkey-raises-800m-t... http://venturebeat.com/2010/11/03/surveymonkey-debt-financing/ http://venturebeat.com/2010/11/03/surveymonkey-debt-financin...
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- wallawe 12y ago
  Good call, doing that now.
  - chaddeshon 12y ago
    Using important is only going to fix the problem if you have defined a style for that element. For example, if you have not defined a border then the client will still be able to add one. Most sites use iframe for embeded widgets for this reason. I think Stripe's checkout doesn't use iframe. They just define every single style with very specific rules. From what I remember.
  - abluecloud 12y ago
    try not to use !important if you can. Just be more specific with your rules.
    - Bartweiss 12y ago
      How bad is !important in this case? I'm aware that it's essentially always bad practice, but my impression was that keeping an embeddable element looking consistent regardless of location was basically its best use.
justhw 12y ago
I like that you ask for username and password at the very end, after user had demoed the product. Best of luck you're competing with (Qualaroo) Hiten Shah and crew.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- wallawe 12y ago
  Thanks, this was inspired after using qualaroo and having a good experience but $250 a month is nuts.
conception 12y ago
The service looks pretty great but freesurveycreator.com makes me terrified it's a malware site.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
brothe2000 12y ago
If you are interested in Surveys based at a location, I'd like to recommend my company: www.RoomPoll.com It's free as well!
carlsednaoui 12y ago
This is great — I was actually thinking about making an open-sourced version of this. Do you have any plans of opening up the code?
ringe 12y ago
Here's my first thought: Pretty and simple. Second: Who is this? Sorry, but I don't like signing up to random single page apps without background knowledge about it. Why should I post my email to even more potential spam sources voluntarily? I do realize everyone has to start somewhere, though.
- dpcan 12y ago
  I agree. I would like to see a "who is this" page as well, followed by a Terms of Service and especially a Privacy Policy. How private is the information gathered from visitors to my website that goes into their database?
  - wallawe 12y ago
    Completely agree and will be adding the official stuff later this week. I had been procrastinating on getting this out there so I figured I'd throw it on HN and see what people thought, then go from there. If people didn't see a need for it, no use in putting all the official jargon in. edit: my personal site and info can be found at www.will-wallace.com, just to put a face and name with the site
jamestanderson 12y ago
This is really nice. I went ahead and made a survey (easy process!) but once I received my embed code I was surprised. The script generated when I made my survey is named in a very predictable, incrementing format. I looked at a few others' surveys by changing the #.js in my embed code. There needs to be some kind of protection to at least keep people guessing numbers, because I don't want people embedding my survey on their site and interfering with my results.
- wallawe 12y ago
  This has been mentioned a few times. Knocking this to the top of the todo list.
minib 12y ago
Shameless plug, my side-project: http://flisti.com/ http://flisti.com/ -- Flisti, a free poll creator without signing up.
abakker 12y ago
As someone who does quite a bit of survey work, this looks great for lightweight stuff. I'm biased, but a key part of almost all survey work I do involves cross tabulation, which requires an ability to manipulate the collected data. Do you have any plans to handle data export to SPSS files, or to have a web-based analysis tool that would enable generating simple cross-tab reports? Also, a small nit: lack of www caused a heroku 404 page, not sure why. After clicking the link once, this stopped happening.
- wallawe 12y ago
  I had to look up about half of the words in the first paragraph ;) How can I reach out to to you to chat more about these use cases?
  - janekk 12y ago
    Here's a primer on survey data outfiling [1]. A good target would be to import a survey into SPSS (or you can use the open source PSPP for free) or - shameless plug - datacracker.com (my saas survey analysis app). Contact me at support at datacracker.com if you want to chat, you'll just get me. [1] http://mktresearch.org/wiki/Getting_a_Data_File http://mktresearch.org/wiki/Getting_a_Data_File

72 points by wallawe 12y ago

This looks fantastic - I like the design and obviously I like the free. The interface is much more attractive than the standard SurveyMonkey and Google Forms options. Two big questions come to mind. First, do you have or plan on an option for people who don't want to embed a survey but link to one outright? Second, do you expect to leave this up, and if it were to become heavily used do you have a plan for monetizing or are you willing to eat the hosting costs? I ask because with a bit of reassurance that it will stick around, this looks like a nice, clean tool I have regular use for.

wallawe 12y ago
My hope was to make this as clean and intuitive as possible from a UX standpoint, so I appreciate your feedback on the design. As far as future development goes, I hadn't actually thought about linking to one outright. I wanted to get feedback on this barebones version and go from there. Features in the pipeline right now are mobile responsiveness and multiple admins per account. I will have to look into what you recommended as well though. As far as monetization goes, I just wanted to build something cool that people use. I figure I can always set up some premium features down the road if hosting becomes too expensive but right now I'm willing to eat a couple hundred bucks a month.
- zz1 12y ago
  Any plans on releasing the source code?
krzrak 12y ago
+1 for the idea of linking to the survey hosted on your server. That was the first use that I thought about.

cheepin 12y ago

Wow. This is really easy to use. I can definitely see myself using something like this. Thanks for sharing.

diggan 12y ago

It would be nice to see some examples more than a mockup on the landing page. Both of the builder and the way to fill out the survey. Is this strictly for surveys or also quizes and other related form-things? Edit: I see now this is for way smaller surveys than I thought. It's basically just a small widget you get from the service. Shameless plug, I work for Typeform (http://www.typeform.com http://www.typeform.com) where we have a incredibly UI for both building and filling in surveys/forms. Check it out if you're looking for a survery/form/quiz SaaS that have the biggest focus on UX/UI and for more complex forms.

blumkvist 12y ago
typeform is awesome!
- diggan 12y ago
  I agree, it's pretty sweet! Doesn't stop people from downvoting me though.
  - squeaky-clean 12y ago
    It's not against the Show HN guidelines, but generally it is frowned upon to advertise your project/company on someone else's Show HN post. If you're offering advice, and linking to your own project as a reference to credibility, that's different. Your comment comes off a bit like "If you're looking for a real Survey webapp, forget this and check out mine!"
    - diggan 12y ago
      Hm, I see. It was more a reference to an alternative form application that serves a different audience. I'll have what you said in mind from now on. Thanks for explaining the reason to me!
jurre 12y ago
The landing page is actually an interactive survey builder though.. And quite nice at that.

monkey_slap 12y ago

This is a little off topic, but the detail of updating the reflection when you select radios on the landing page is really slick.

wallawe 12y ago
Thanks! I thought it was a cool little effect, though not supported in any browsers but chrome unfortunately. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/-webkit-box-reflect https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/-webkit-box...
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

jgalt212 12y ago

What's the latest on Survey Monkey? They have raised insane amounts of cash. http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/17/surveymonkey-raises-800m-to-give-shareholders-back-some-love/ http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/17/surveymonkey-raises-800m-t... http://venturebeat.com/2010/11/03/surveymonkey-debt-financing/ http://venturebeat.com/2010/11/03/surveymonkey-debt-financin...

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

wallawe 12y ago
Good call, doing that now.
- chaddeshon 12y ago
  Using important is only going to fix the problem if you have defined a style for that element. For example, if you have not defined a border then the client will still be able to add one. Most sites use iframe for embeded widgets for this reason. I think Stripe's checkout doesn't use iframe. They just define every single style with very specific rules. From what I remember.
- abluecloud 12y ago
  try not to use !important if you can. Just be more specific with your rules.
  - Bartweiss 12y ago
    How bad is !important in this case? I'm aware that it's essentially always bad practice, but my impression was that keeping an embeddable element looking consistent regardless of location was basically its best use.

justhw 12y ago

I like that you ask for username and password at the very end, after user had demoed the product. Best of luck you're competing with (Qualaroo) Hiten Shah and crew.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
wallawe 12y ago
Thanks, this was inspired after using qualaroo and having a good experience but $250 a month is nuts.

conception 12y ago

The service looks pretty great but freesurveycreator.com makes me terrified it's a malware site.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

brothe2000 12y ago

If you are interested in Surveys based at a location, I'd like to recommend my company: www.RoomPoll.com It's free as well!

carlsednaoui 12y ago

This is great — I was actually thinking about making an open-sourced version of this. Do you have any plans of opening up the code?

ringe 12y ago

Here's my first thought: Pretty and simple. Second: Who is this? Sorry, but I don't like signing up to random single page apps without background knowledge about it. Why should I post my email to even more potential spam sources voluntarily? I do realize everyone has to start somewhere, though.

dpcan 12y ago
I agree. I would like to see a "who is this" page as well, followed by a Terms of Service and especially a Privacy Policy. How private is the information gathered from visitors to my website that goes into their database?
- wallawe 12y ago
  Completely agree and will be adding the official stuff later this week. I had been procrastinating on getting this out there so I figured I'd throw it on HN and see what people thought, then go from there. If people didn't see a need for it, no use in putting all the official jargon in. edit: my personal site and info can be found at www.will-wallace.com, just to put a face and name with the site

jamestanderson 12y ago

This is really nice. I went ahead and made a survey (easy process!) but once I received my embed code I was surprised. The script generated when I made my survey is named in a very predictable, incrementing format. I looked at a few others' surveys by changing the #.js in my embed code. There needs to be some kind of protection to at least keep people guessing numbers, because I don't want people embedding my survey on their site and interfering with my results.

wallawe 12y ago
This has been mentioned a few times. Knocking this to the top of the todo list.

minib 12y ago

Shameless plug, my side-project: http://flisti.com/ http://flisti.com/ -- Flisti, a free poll creator without signing up.

abakker 12y ago

As someone who does quite a bit of survey work, this looks great for lightweight stuff. I'm biased, but a key part of almost all survey work I do involves cross tabulation, which requires an ability to manipulate the collected data. Do you have any plans to handle data export to SPSS files, or to have a web-based analysis tool that would enable generating simple cross-tab reports? Also, a small nit: lack of www caused a heroku 404 page, not sure why. After clicking the link once, this stopped happening.

wallawe 12y ago
I had to look up about half of the words in the first paragraph ;) How can I reach out to to you to chat more about these use cases?
- janekk 12y ago
  Here's a primer on survey data outfiling [1]. A good target would be to import a survey into SPSS (or you can use the open source PSPP for free) or - shameless plug - datacracker.com (my saas survey analysis app). Contact me at support at datacracker.com if you want to chat, you'll just get me. [1] http://mktresearch.org/wiki/Getting_a_Data_File http://mktresearch.org/wiki/Getting_a_Data_File