How to Make a Google Survey

Last Updated: October 21, 2021

You can make your own customized surveys in Google by using Google Forms. Google Forms is one of the apps accessible in Google Docs or Drive. It makes creating your survey or poll easy and simple. You can even send the survey and receive and view all responses right from it. All data gathered from the survey is automatically stored in a spreadsheet saved in your Google Drive. Note though that you can only do this from the Google Drive website.

Method 1

Method 1 of 3:

Creating the Survey

1
Log into the Google Drive website. Visit Google Drive (drive.google.com) from any web browser. Sign in with your Gmail email address and password. This is your one Google ID for all of Google’s services, including Google Drive.
- Upon logging in, you will be brought to the main directory. All your documents, spreadsheets, slides, forms, and others created in Google are here.
- It is not currently possible to create a Google Form from the Drive mobile app.
- If you don't have a Google account, you can create one for free from the login page. See How to Make a Google Account for detailed instructions on creating a free account.
2
Click the “New” button on the top left corner. A drop-down menu listing all the documents or files you can create will appear.

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3
Hover over “More” and select “Google Forms.” A new tab or window will open with the untitled new form.
4
Set the survey settings. There are a few options found at the top of the page to control your survey settings. Check each of these, and tick the ones you’d like to apply on your survey.
- “Show progress bar at the bottom of form pages”—Tick this option if you want a progress bar displayed for every page of the survey. This will let the respondent know their overall progress in the survey.
- “Allow one response per person”—Tick this option if you want to limit responses to only one per respondent. This can be a good option to have if you don’t want to skew your results and only capture unique respondents.
- “Shuffle question order”—Tick this option if you want your questions to be shown in random to different respondents. This can be good if your questions aren’t related to each other or aren’t in sequential order.
5
Name the survey. Click the “Untitled form” text and edit the name of your survey. You can also put an optional description underneath the title to provide a background, objectives, or instructions to your respondents.

Method 2

Method 2 of 3:

Making Your Questions

1
Write your first question in the "Question Title" box. You can put as many questions as you need in the survey, but you’ll need to have at least one. Start with the question you want to ask.
2
Add help text for the reader. You can add help text to guide the respondents in answering the question. Use this to explain anything that may be confusing in the question, or to add context.
3
Select the "Question Type". Indicate what type of answer is acceptable for the question. Click the drop-down list to see the options. You can set it to Text, Multiple Choice, Checkboxes, Scale, and others.
4
Adjust the answer options. Depending on your Question Type, the next field item will change. Put the acceptable answers in the provided fields. For example, if you chose Multiple Choice, you have to indicate the choices to be given to your respondents. Each Question Type has additional "Advanced settings" you can change as well.
5
Make a question mandatory. There’s checkbox at the bottom of the question to make it a required question. Tick on it if you want it to be mandatory, meaning an answer is required before proceeding to the next one.
6
Click the “Done” button to save your question. If you have another question to add to the survey, click the “Add item” button below it.

Method 3

Method 3 of 3:

Finishing and Sending the Survey

1
Add a confirmation page message. The last section for your survey is the Confirmation Page. The Confirmation Page is the page that will appear once your respondents are done with the survey. You can put a generic thank-you message or confirmation of receipt of the answers in the first field.
2
Adjust the confirmation page settings. There are a few other options to control your confirmation settings. Tick the ones you’d like to apply.
- “Show link to submit another response”—Tick this option to show the respondents a link to respond to the survey again.
- “Publish and show a public link to form results”—Tick this option to show the respondents the link to the survey results.
- “Allow responders to edit responses after submitting”—Tick this option if you allow your respondents to edit their responses after submission.
3
Send the form. Click the “Send form” button at the bottom of the page to save your survey and send it out. A window will appear to display the link to your survey form. Distribute this link to your respondents. All of their responses will be automatically recorded by Google Forms in a Google Spreadsheet file saved to your Google Drive.^{[1]
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- Sharing via social network—You can share this survey link via Google Plus, Facebook, and Twitter. Click on the appropriate social network buttons to proceed.
- Send via email—You can also directly share the survey via email. Type in the email addresses of your respondents in the last section on the window.