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Show HN: Typeform was too expensive so I built my own forms

(www.ikiform.com)
183 points preetsuthar17 | 7 comments | 10 Jul 25 09:02 UTC | HN request time: 0.21s | source | bottom

Hey HN,

I'm a solopreneur and run a web design agency.

I create open-source apps, but I also work as a freelancer and designer. I was accepting any new freelance project via forms on my agency website.

I was using Typeform, but as time went by and more people submitted forms, it got more and more expensive. That time, I thought to use Google Form, but it was way too blocky and looked very unprofessional on my agency website.

So I thought to build my own forms for my own usage, and it turns out it almost doubled form submissions and inquiry calls.

I was happy, so I thought to build it for everyone and make it open-source.

I added AI functionalities using Vercel AISDK. I can generate forms almost instantly using AI and also added analytics AI so that users can talk with their forms—more like talk with their analytics data.

I've been building this publicly, sharing updates on my X account (preetsuthar17)

I hope this product will be as helpful to you as it was for me. Would love your feedback pls

Preet

Show context
chrismorgan ◴[10 Jul 25 10:18 UTC] No.44519350[source]▶
Very important thing missing: a demo form, to understand the user experience.

Especially if you’re comparing yourself with Typeform, which is rather controversial. (I detest its entire approach.)

replies(3): >>44519431 #>>44519437 #>>44519500 #
1. wouldbecouldbe ◴[10 Jul 25 10:36 UTC] No.44519431[source]▶
I see a demo form if you click on the demo, but it's not very obvious
replies(1): >>44519445 #
2. preetsuthar17 ◴[10 Jul 25 10:37 UTC] No.44519445[source]▶
still if you want to try the demo you can try here

https://www.ikiform.com/forms/a2675039-5901-4052-88c0-b60977...

replies(3): >>44520175 #>>44520252 #>>44522711 #
3. chrismorgan ◴[10 Jul 25 12:20 UTC] No.44520175[source]▶
OK, initial feedback: you need to work on your colours and contrasts. Disabled Previous button isn’t clearly disabled, placeholder value looks almost the same as an actual value, focus indicator is too subtle. I reckon these things are noticeably harder to get right on dark than on light colour schemes.

Also keyboard navigation is poor: when you shift to a new page, you should probably focus the first field; or at the very least reset focus to the start of the document so that when the user presses Tab after having clicked the Next button they get to the first field, not the footer “Powered by Ikiform” link. (This doesn’t affect pressing Enter from one of the inputs—when they disappear, focus shifts back to the top.)

But I’m pleased to say that it’s nothing like Typeform. I strongly recommend ditching any comparison with it, you’re doing things sanely, unlike their experience.

4. pbronez ◴[10 Jul 25 12:30 UTC] No.44520252[source]▶
It’s a nice form. On iOS when I hit next it didn’t pop me up to the beginning of the next page. Agree with the sibling that it would be nice to get focus on that next obvious step.
5. RandomBacon ◴[10 Jul 25 16:24 UTC] No.44522711[source]▶
The name fields have a minimum length of two characters. There are people with single character names.
replies(1): >>44523789 #
6. bornfreddy ◴[10 Jul 25 18:04 UTC] No.44523789{3}[source]▶
Mandatory reading for anyone implementing forms with names: Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names [0].

[0] https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...

replies(1): >>44531124 #
7. librasteve ◴[11 Jul 25 11:56 UTC] No.44531124{4}[source]▶
Thanks for the link … great read and yes very tricky.

I have started hacking a bit on a Contact::Name text parser in raku Grammars if anyone would like to check it out - contributions are very welcome! https://raku.land/zef:librasteve/Contact

Why Raku?

  - the easy built in Grammar syntax means that coders can work quickly to build structured parse trees that can deal with all the textual nuance (unicode, language, rtl, pluggable sub-grammars…)

  - the consistent ecosystem provides for class / roles as first class packages in their own right, so we can have a shared standardized tree of real word objects we want to parse out of text such as LLM responses