Ask HN: Should users be made to fill a form before downloading?

[anujseth]

Hi,

I have a dilemma related to the free download version of the my startup's software (www.graphitecharts.com/download). We are a silverlight based charting library with an aim to support WPF and Windows Phone 7 in the near future. I know most people here hate plug-ins but our aim is to focus on intranet and extranet applications and sites, and eventually support sharepoint and possibly excel.

We launched on 22nd march 2011, that's the date I officially announced it on twitter and posted it to the visual studio gallery. We haven't had any sales yet, but we do get around 5-10 unique visitors a day from the visual studio gallery and google. 2 out of every 5 people who visit the site do download the free version. We have had around 50 downloads so far. The problem is I have no way to contact these people. I do not force them to fill any forms and but there is an optional comment form below. This setup stems from the fact that I personally get annoyed when I have to fill a form to try something out. I also hoped people who are genuinely interested will email us back on their own.

Problem is its not working. No one has filled the form and no has emailed us back. Its still early days but charting is hard (the first version has taken 1 year to build) and I would love feedback from users before I start working on the next version. So do you think I should force users to fill a form ? I will explicitly state there that we might contact you to ask for suggestions etc. in the future.

Any thoughts on this would be really helpful.

ps: I know the site needs a lot of work, so be gentle, but any feedback is welcome.

thanks, Anuj.

[flashingleds]

Good work on skipping the forms; if you make me fill out a form before allowing me to download something I'm going to be mashing the keyboard with my palm.

Emailing people to solicit feedback seems a little bit weird. Just put a note somewhere (where it will be seen) reiterating that this is version one and you would really like any kind of feedback.

If that's not working, figure out some specific aspect you want feedback on and put the question out to a forum. For example I've seen some amazing UI design feedback come from cold-call requests on HN.

[anujseth]

Yes, that is one of the reasons I haven't put the form anyone can just fill it with gibberish just to get to the download. But I have asked a few people who have compulsory forms and all of them say that people fill them in and mostly accurately. So I don't know its confusing.

The note sounds like a good idea.

I'm hesitant to ask for specific feedback since its Silverlight and not Html 5 or something cooler. Most people will be instantly turned off.

[Chocobean]

What kind of form....just email?

I would personally be very hesitant to fill out a form for free software (trial? full?), and be completely turned off by the prospect of having sales people contact me about it later.

Sometimes having nothing to say is a good thing.

[anujseth]

A form with just the persons name and email and optionally organization and how they plan to use the software. Something similar but much shorter from the optional one already on the download page.

Its the full version without any restrictions except it contains a watermark that links back to the site.

Even if I did put a compulsory form I would make it clear that you'll only be contacted for suggestions on product direction and never ever a sales pitch.