ARC’s Instructional Technology Center : Google Docs Forms: Survey Creation Made Easy! Fall 2011 P a g e | 1

Google Docs Forms:

Survey Creation Made Easy!

STEP 1: LOG IN TO GOOGLE DOCS

B. Use an existing email account to which you have access, and create a Google account

with it: https://accounts.google.com/newaccount You can specify a unique password

for this account, which is NOT directly tied to your email account. (The passwords are

maintained independently.)

2. Log into your Gmail account and select Documents:

STEP 2: CHOOSE TO CREATE A NEW FORM

From the CREATE NEW drop-down menu in Google Docs, choose FORM:

ARC’s Instructional Technology Center : Google Docs Forms: Survey Creation Made Easy! Fall 2011 P a g e | 2

STEP 3: EDIT THE SAMPLE QUESTIONS AND ADD YOUR OWN

Two sample questions are automatically created for your form, which you can edit as desired.

Note you can change the question type to be text, paragraph text, multiple choice, checkboxes,

choose from a list, scale, or grid. Click ADD in the upper left corner to add more questions. Click

SAVE periodically in the upper right corner to save your work.

Notice you can make questions REQUIRED by clicking the checkbox at the bottom of the question

ARC’s Instructional Technology Center : Google Docs Forms: Survey Creation Made Easy! Fall 2011 P a g e | 3

STEP 4: CUSTOMIZE WITH A THEME

This step is optional, but you can select different themes which make your surveys look more

interesting as well as (potentially) more professional. There are currently 97 different form themes

available. Click THEME at the top of the form window to make a selection.

After choosing a desired theme, click APPLY in the upper left corner to return to the form editor.

STEP 5: CUSTOMIZE YOUR RESPONSE PAGE

By default, after people submit your webform they will be shown a webpage which reads,

ARC’s Instructional Technology Center : Google Docs Forms: Survey Creation Made Easy! Fall 2011 P a g e | 4

Google Forms now supports active / live hyperlinks in response messages as well, so you can

provide a link back to your own website if desired. Last time I tried, you could NOT enter HTML

code for a link, making “plain English” text a hyperlink. You have to use/paste the full URL for it to

be active in the form response window. Even though it’s not as “pretty” and professional looking

as linked text can be, it’s still WONDERFUL that Google Forms provides this functionality.

It is worth noting that when editing a form, your actions are NOT recorded in the document

history, so they can be “undone” or “reverted” as they are in a standard Google document or

spreadsheet. You also want to be careful to generally NOT move questions around in your form

survey.

ARC’s Instructional Technology Center : Google Docs Forms: Survey Creation Made Easy! Fall 2011 P a g e | 5

Before sharing, test the link and take the survey. Make sure that it is filling your spreadsheet

properly and that your summary of responses (see step 7 below) is working as intended.

The website links Google Forms generates can be lengthy, and these can be cut off or truncated in

email messages. To make links shorter, you can use URL shortener websites like tinyurl.com or

bitly.com. These shortened URL’s may be blocked so when sharing a survey link you can share

BOTH a shortened version (like tinyurl.com) and the full web link.

others access to your forms, however, and if you can use the embed code I think it’s a good idea.

STEP 7: LOOK AT YOUR RESULTS

Google Form results can be viewed several ways. Data from your form goes directly into a Google

Spreadsheet, which can be viewed online or downloaded as an Excel or other file type. Online or

offline, you can then create various charts and graphs to see your results visually. I like to view the

summary responses which the Google Form automatically generates, by choosing SEE RESPONSES

– SUMMARY at the top of the form editing window.

The screenshot below shows two summary responses from a survey:

ARC’s Instructional Technology Center : Google Docs Forms: Survey Creation Made Easy! Fall 2011 P a g e | 6

help site itself: http://docs.google.com/support/