Simple, free online surveys

How to add Forms to your Site, Blog Webpage etc:


Google Docs is a free, powerful online word processor. But did you know that it can help you create and distribute survey forms as well?


There might have been many instances when we have to take a survey for a college assignment or project at work, but creating and formatting a questionnaire is painful and time consuming. You have to formulate the questions carefully, print out the forms, and then manually distribute them. If that wasn't enough, after you get the results, going through every form and meticulously collating the data is another nightmare. To make it simple for you, Google Docs features the ability to create forms in just a few clicks.


Creating the form
To begin, just go to www.docs.google. com and log in using your Google account. After that click ‘New’ and select ‘Form’ from the drop-down menu. A page will open on which you can enter your questions. Enter a title such as "Test Form" and a description in the boxes provided. Keep the ‘Name’ box empty; this is for the respondent to fill in. Now in the ‘Question Title’ and ‘Help Text’ fields, type your questions and hints for the respondents (if required). In the ‘Question Type’ drop-down, select ‘Text’, ‘Multiple Choice’, or ‘Checkboxes’ depending on your methods of analysis. For example ‘Choose from a list’ lets you limit the response to one of multiple choices, but ‘Text’, lets the respondent type anything. After this, click ‘Done’. If a question needs to be compulsory, check ‘Make this a required question’. Now to create the next question, click ‘Add question’ and repeat the steps till you've added all the questions you need to. After that, click ‘Save’ in the top right corner to save the new Google Doc.


Publishing the Form
After you have created the form, the next step is to send it out to be filled. To do this, click ‘Email this form’ and enter the email addresses of the people you want to send it to. Google Docs will automatically compose a message with a description of the form and a unique link for it. Alternatively, if you want to use the survey on your blog or website, click ‘More actions’ and select ‘Embed’. This will generate a unique string of HTML code which you can copy and paste as an entry on your blog or website to embed the form.