I’m sure that it totally pisses off the people at SurveyMonkey.com and Zommerang.com that Google now has a totally free way to build excellent online surveys.  Since we are all about doing everything on-the-cheap, we thought we would provide a quick tutorial on building a free survey!

Why surveys? They are totally invaluable for gathering information when you are planning a digital signage project.   It’s a great idea to ask your constituencies about everything from the type of content they would find most valuable, to the network specifications on each local site.

Step 1: Signup for Google Docs

Head over to docs.google.com (If you don’t have a Google Account, you will need to create one.

Step 2: Create a New Google Form

Once you have landed on the homepage of Google Documents, you should see a blue toolbar across the top.  To create a new survey (AKA “form”), select New > Form.

Create New Google Form

Step 3: Create your Google survey

Now for the fun part!  You can add as many items as you would like to your survey.  To add a question, click Add item on the upper left corner of the screen.  You can then select from a variety of question types.  We generally use text because it is the most flexible for the respondents.  But of course, you can ask whatever type of questions you like!

Click on the image below to see a full size example of what the survey creation page will look like.

Google Survey Creation

Step 4: Share your survey

To share your survey with your respondents, you can either email it to them directly, paste a link on your website, OR embed the survey form itself.  These actions are available at the top of the edit screen.

Step 5: Review your data

The best part about using Google Docs for surveys is that the responses will automatically be included into an easy-to-use spreadsheet.  The Google Spreadsheet can be accessed by clicking See Responses > Spreadsheet at the top of the screen.  If you don’t like using the google spreadsheet for data analysis, you can download an Excel or Access-ready file by selecting file > export > csv.

This is a really easy process for gathering data.  Let us know if you have any questions! And, check out the excellent video below for more tips!!