Tools Used In This Recipe
As you research, develop, and launch your startup you should be gathering feedback from prospects and users as much as possible. For online products there are ways to gather this information passively, and you need to know how to ask good questions if you're going to get the right answers, but designing a feedback form is also an important part of the process. In this recipe we'll use Typeform to set up a feedback form to allow visitors to the Startup Recipes Website to send feedback or volunteer as an author or editor. Note that the free tier of Typeform only allows 10 responses per month, so depending on your needs you may need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Getting Started
Start by logging in to Typeform or setting up a new account. After you accept the terms and conditions you'll be asked to fill out a brief survey with questions about you and how you're planning to use Typeform. This process doubles as an introduction to the product experience.
After you complete the survey you'll see a template gallery. Typeform has a number of pre-built forms for different purposes that you can use as a starting point. In our case we'll select Start from scratch.
You'll then be asked to give your form a name (this is only so you can identify it among the forms you create) and to select a form type (this affects which types of questions are featured in the authoring interface). We'll select Feedback form.
Once you've given your form a name and selected a type you'll be directed to the Create view of the Typeform authoring interface. The center panel always shows a preview of the currently selected item. On the left you'll see that Typeform has added two basic questions to the form, and the preview panel in the center of the screen shows the first of them. On the right are a number of options for the current question; the type of question, whether it's optional or required, the maximum characters (for question types that allow free-text entry), whether to include an image on the screen, and the screen layout.
In the upper right there are options to adjust the design (you can apply a theme from Typeform's gallery or design your own to match your branding) and to implement custom branching logic so that users will take different paths through your form depending in the answers they select or provide.
Typeform can also include a custom ending screen. This can be used to say thanks to your users, to direct them to your website or social media presence, or to allow them to go back and modify their answers. These options can be toggled through buttons on the right side of the screen.
Once you have built your form there are a number of ways you can share it with users. Click the Share link at the top center of the screen. The most common features on this screen are the share link, which allows you to include a link to your form in an email or on social media, and different options for embedding it in a Web page. You'll need to finish and publish your form before you can use these features.
Typeform also includes a very robust set of metrics for each form. Click the Results link at the top of the screen. There won't be any data here until your form is published and users interact with it, but after users fill it out you'll see summary statistics about their device, time to complete, and on paid plans, where users are abandoning your form.
Once you are done, switch back to the Create screen and click Publish in the upper right. Now you're ready to share your form with the world. If you want to see a finished example, the How you can get involved page on this site has the form we use to gather feedback.
How you can get involvedThe contents of this Recipe are © Innovation Works, Inc. and are licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0 . Contact us with questions or feedback, or to learn more about our structured program in Entrepreneurism based on Startup Recipes.