Google form Settings

Google Forms Settings

Introduction

Google Forms is a powerful tool for creating online surveys, quizzes for classroom assessments, Registration Forms, and Feedback forms. 

With Google Forms, you can easily create forms and gather responses in real-time from the audience. 

In this Blog, we will explore some essential Google Form Settings that one should know to create effective forms.

Google Form Settings

Form Title and Description

Creating a Google Form is a task that requires a little bit of creativity and patience. 

Before Creating a Google form, one should first give a title to the form which should be clear and concise.

The title of the form gives the audience an idea of what the form is all about. It should be such that the respondent comes to know bout what the information is asked for. for example, Registration form, Survey form, Quiz, Workshop form, Pre-training Survey form, etc.

One can add a description to the form so that the respondents get the context of the form. Additional information can be provided in the description of the form.

The description can also have instructions to fill the form in the correct manner.

Question Types

Google Forms support a wide variety of question types like Multiple-type, Short answer, paragraph, dropdown, checklist, and so on. 

Each question type serves a different purpose. A user can select the type of question according to his/her requirements and according to the information that he/she wants to collect from the respondents.

• Short Answer: Such questions require a short answer mainly up to 3-4 words. for example, Name, age, profession, email-id, etc.
• Paragraph: Such questions are asked to get more information from the respondents like their interests, expectations, experience, etc.
• Multiple choice: These questions have a number of options to choose from. These are mostly used in making quizzes where the students have to select the correct answer from the given multiple choices. for example, Where is the Taj Mahal Located? a. Agra b. Delhi c. Mumbai d. Mathura
• Check boxes: When more than one option needs to be selected as an answer then check boxes are used. Knowing the interests, hobbies, etc may result in more than one answer so the respondent can select 2 or more options as answers.
• Dropdown: Sometimes, the number of options is too large to choose from, so Google Forms have the option of dropdown, where you can type all the options, and the respondent will click on the dropdown menu and gets the list of options and select his preferred choice. These are mostly used in selecting subjects or courses or sessions, etc.
• File Upload: This question offers the respondent to upload an image or a file as per required format of the survey or form. for example, passport size photograph, signature sample, etc. The files will get uploaded in owner's drive. Specific file type like document, image,spreadsheet, pdf, drawing, video, audio can be selected. Maximum number of files can be selected from 1,5,and 10. Maximum file size can also be selected so that the respondent can upload a file up to that limit only. Google Forms accepts up to 1gb of files.
• Linear Scale:  linear scale can be used for rating the sessions nd other purposes. 
• Multiple Choice Grid:  It allows to ask a series of related questions that have same set of answer choices. respondents can select one response from each row of the multiple grid.Here are the steps to create a multiple choice grid in Google Forms:

1. Open Google forms by typing www.forms.google.com  in the browser and create a new form or open an existing one.
2. Click on the + Button to add a new question.
3. Choose " Multiple Choice Grid" option from the dropdown menu.
4. Enter the question for the grid that need to be answered.
5. Enter the Row headers. there are different questions that can be asked in each row of the grid.
6. Enter the answer choices from which the respondents have to choose one for each row of the grid.
7. Repeat Step 5 and 6 for each row of the grid.
8. Customize additional options for the question like Required etc.

• Check Box Grid: It also allows you to ask a series of related questions that have a set of options which the respondents have to select for each question.Here, the respondent can select more than one option as an answer in each question of the grid. Here are the steps to create a Check box grid in Google Forms:

1. Open Google forms by typing www.forms.google.com  in the browser and create a new form or open an existing one.
2. Click on the + Button to add a new question.
3. Choose " Check Box Grid" option from the dropdown menu.
4. Enter the question for the grid that need to be answered.
5. Enter the Row Headers. it has different questions that will be asked in each row of the grid.
6. Enter the Column Headers. It has the different options which the respondent has to select for each question.
7. Customize any additional settings like required or a description to be given, etc.

• Date: This type of question is used to enter the Date of Birth of the respondent.
• Time: This type is used when a time is needed to be entered from the respondent. 

Required Questions

When you create a Google Form, there are certain questions, answers to which are mandatory. Such questions are required questions in Google Forms.

This Feature of Google Forms is useful to ensure that the respondents fill in all the required information needed from them.

It allows the respondent to submit the form only after filling in the required fields. Such questions have an asterisk sign(*) beside the question.

 For example, if the Name is a required question, then the respondent won't be able to submit the form until he fills in the Name question in the form.

Response Validation

This is a Google Form feature that allows the respondents to answer the form according to some specific rules being set by the form maker. It allows the respondents to give correct and consistent answers to the questions being asked in the form. 

Response Validation improves the accuracy and the quality of the data collected from the respondents by ensuring that they provide the answers in the prescribed format. It reduces the chances of errors, manipulation of data, and manual cleaning of the data.

With response Validation, you can set up rules to validate different types of responses such as text, Numbers, dates, URLs, etc. One can also create custom validation messages that appear when the respondent fills in an incorrect response. It helps in creating more reliable and useful data in Google Forms.

Response Collection Settings

Google Forms also offers various response collection settings that allow the user to control how to receive the responses.  It offers settings like receiving email notifications of each response or getting responses in a linked spreadsheet. The answers automatically get collected in the spreadsheet from where further analysis of the data can be carried out. The responses can be limited to one and another feature of setting a deadline for the responses can also be set.

Customization Options

Google form also offers various customization options so that the Form looks professional. A variety of themes and fonts are present for choice. 

One can add custom backgrounds also by uploading own custom images to be set as the background of the form. One can also customize the color scheme of the form. Custom logos and branding elements can also be added to the form.

Click on the color palette on the top right of the Google form. 

A theme panel appears on the right side of the Google form. One can select Text style, Header text, and Font size, Question Font and size, text font and size, the header of the form, it can be customized also, Color of the form, and the Background of the form.

To add a Custom header, one can select from the inbuilt themes, upload from own computer or select from Google Photos.