How to Use Linear Scale in Google Forms

Google Forms is all about collecting information online that with a personalized touch. Setting up of Google Docs Forms is pretty easy.

I am giving you ample tips on this post that includes plenty of screenshots. This can help you understand what is Google Docs Forms and also help you for setting up of Google Docs Forms.

You have the choice to include your own images, YouTube videos etc. to the Form to give it a personalized touch.

It's easy to set up online surveys, and questionnaires using Google Docs Form with a few clicks and drag and drop. Share your finished Forms with the participants who can remotely answer to it.

You can link your Forms to a Google Spreadsheet. So when someone responds, that respond will be recorded to the connected Sheets just like in a database.

Other than the answers, an additional timestamp will be placed in the very first column of each row.

This is my first tutorial on Google Forms. In this, you can learn about setting up a Google Forms in Google Docs.

I have a few more tutorials related to Google Forms in the pipeline. In that, I'll try to provide you how to control Forms' input via validation rules.

Let me show you how to generate a Google Docs Form and connect it to Google Sheets. By connecting Google Forms to Google Sheets you are opening whole new opportunities to manipulate your Forms data.

No doubt, Query is the best function in Google Sheets to control Forms data. It's useful in filtering rows based on the timestamp.

Also with Query, you can quickly summarise the data stored via Forms. You can check my function guide to learn Query.

Let's begin with how to generate a Google Docs Form.

Steps Involved in Setting up of Google Docs Forms

I am explaining to you each and every step involved in setting up Google Docs Forms that are visually appealing.

Setting up of Your First Google Docs Form

To Generate your first Google Docs Form, go to this link.

Link: Google Docs Form

You can also create a new form by clicking on the "New" button on your Google Drive. In Google Drive Click New > Google Forms > Blank Form.

There you can see the option to choose some built-in Google Forms templates including party invites, event registrations, event feedback etc.

Since our topic is aboutSetting up of Google Docs Forms, I am leaving the template part in this guide.

Here is the home view of a blank Google Docs Form.

I have marked three buttons on the top. They are the Customize theme, Preview, and Settings.

Customize theme

It lets you customize the looks of your Form. You can insert your own image on the header of the Form.

Also, you can select a beautiful image to use in the header that Google provides that includes GIFs.

Preview

The Preview option helps you to see the preview of your form before sending. Very useful to see the appearance of your generated form. So before sending you can ensure that everything is perfect.

Settings

Under the settings, there are a few very useful options that we can discuss at the later part of this tutorial.

Now time to move to the tips on setting up of Google Docs Forms.

Step by Step Instructions to Generate a Google Docs Form

The very first step is naming the form. You can refer to the above image. On the top left corner, you can type the name of your file. Then name your Form and type the description.

Test Form – This is my Forms' title (see the first screenshot below).

This Form is just for the experimental purpose – This is my Forms' description.

The next step is to connect the Form to Google Sheets. Click on the "RESPONSES" tab (please refer to the image below) and click on "Create a Spreadsheet".

Now come back to the Questions Tab. You can create different types of Questions using Google Forms. These question types are the soul of setting up of Google Docs Forms.

I am going to introduce you to each available Question types. So go through them all to understand how to generate your First Google Docs Form with a professional touch.

See this Screenshot to understand the available question types that you can add to a Google Form.

Short Answer Question Type

What's the role of the question type,Short Answer in setting up of Google Docs Forms?

Use the Short Answer question type to get short answers. Here is one example.

It can accommodate long answers too. But on the form submission screen, the answer field won't wrap the long sentences. If the answer is long, you can use a different question type that I have included below.

You can preview this Form by clicking on the eye icon on the top. You can grab the share link by clicking on the Send button.

When you click the Send button Google Docs Forms will provide you different option to share the Form.

That include, send via email, grab the link and share, embed on a web page (useful for bloggers) and the social sharing is also available.

Once a recipient responds to your form, that response will be recorded in your connected Google Sheets.

See the above Form and output side by side.

The paragraph is the next question type. I am taking you to all the question types because understanding these are important in Setting up of Google Docs Forms.

Paragraph Question Type

This is just similar to the above Short Answer question. But in this, the answer filed wraps when a responder type long answers. Use this form when you expect long answers.
Example:

Checkboxes

Form submission is easy with Checkboxes. To answer a question, the responder only wants to click the checkbox against an answer.

You May Like: Insert CheckBox, Tick Mark in Google Sheets.

When you generate a Google Docs Form that contains Checkboxes, you should make one important setting! What's that?

First, see what's checkboxes in Google Docs Forms.

Now to that important setting!

You can restrict a responder to select only one checkbox in a multiple choice question type that uses Checkboxes.

To get this additional setting, click the three dots menu on the bottom side of the Forms editor and set the Response Validation as above.

You may be interested to see how the checkboxes output will record in Google Sheets. It's like the timestamp in the first column and the answer in the second column.

27/09/2018 18:32:44 Luka Modric

I hope you have now got some idea on setting up of Google Docs Forms. There are few more question types. Just read on.

Drop-down Question

Both drop-down and checkboxes actually belong to the Data Validation family in Google Sheets. Here also there is no difference in the functionality.

The drop-down question in Google Docs Forms helps a responder to answer a question by clicking on the drop-down and selecting an answer.

The form edit view of both the drop-down and checkboxes are the same. So I am skipping the screenshot this time as I have already plenty of images posted and more are coming with other question types below.

File Upload Question

This setting lets responders upload a file to your Google Drive. You can set the number of files permitted to upload, file type, and also the file size.

The responder will see an "ADD FILE" blue link to click and upload a file that meets the type and size that you set.

In this case, what would happen to the connected Google Sheets?

As usual, the connected Google Sheets will record the timestamp and the link of the uploaded file.

Linear Scale Question Type

What's the purpose of Linear scale question type in Google Docs Forms?

That depends. You can use this to show a scale with number 0 to 10 or 1 to 10 and a custom label on the start and end of the scale. To understand this see the below example.

See how I am using Linear Scale question to rate a question related to a movie. Here is that Forms' edit view.

And the Form view. Here responders can select their rating.

You can see one possible drawback of this Linear Scale question type in Google Docs Forms when using it for rating movies or books.

For example, how to rate the above movie if my rating is 4.5 (decimal involved). It's not possible actually. But here is a workaround (not the perfect one though).

Add one more Linear scale to the form. This time select the Linear scale 1 to 2.

Type label 1 as "1 represents 0" and "2 represents 0.5". You can then manipulate the rating in the Google Sheets later. This is not a perfect solution but works.

Multiple Choice Grid Question

What is the purpose of multiple Grid questions in Google Docs Form?

It takes time to understand the multiple Choice Grid question type but once learned most useful in setting up of Google Docs Forms.

If different questions can have common types of answers, then you can use this question type.

You can ask different questions about one of your product, for example, a smartphone as below.

This time first I am showing you the Google Docs Forms' preview that followed by the edit preview because that can clear your doubts.

Multiple Choice Grid Example Preview:

Multiple Choice Grid Edit Preview

I know without showing you the recorded Forms' data in Google Sheets, you won't fully understand this complicated Form option.

Tick Box Grid Question Type

Another type of questions that you can use in setting up of Google Docs Forms.

I don't find much difference between the Tick Box grid and Multiple Choice Grid. Both you can create in the same way. So I am skipping the Forms edit view.

The one and the only difference that I could find between the Multiple Choice Grid and Tick Box Grid is in the submission of answers.

In the latter, you can select multiple answers per each sub-questions that will recorded comma separated in Google Sheets.

Tick Box Grid Form View

You have already learned the important parts of Setting up of Google Docs Forms. There are two more question types. They are time and date.

Date Question Type

You can use this question type to provide a date field on Form. For example, you can ask a responder to enter his DOB and give a Form field to either type the date or choose from the calendar.

Time Question Type

Needless to say, this is for asking to enter a time or duration in Hr: Min: Sec format.

Sections, Videos, and Images inside Forms

At the beginning of this post, I have explained to you how to change the header image. Other than the header image, you can insert YouTube videos and images within Forms.

See the relevant icons marked on the image (right-hand side).

Other than the image and Video, there is one more option named as Add Sections. This helps you to split your forms into different sections.

If you have set multiple questions that need a responder to scroll the page to answer, you can make sections to fit them into one screen. In such cases, a "Next" button will appear at the end of each section.

Conclusion

Before winding up this tutorial on how to generate a Google Docs Form, here is one important point.

At the beginning of this tutorial, I have left off something regarding the form settings. Here is that detail.

On the top of the Form edit window, you can see the settings icon next to the preview Icon.

Click on it to see a few very useful options. There are lots of options that you can try later. But I think I should touch two important Google Docs Forms settings.

1. Limit to one response – This setting can help you to limit multiple Forms submission from the same user.

I hope this answering your question of how to limit multiple Form responses from the same user.

2. Make this a Quiz – Don't miss this to enable if you are conducting a Quiz competition online. I think I should detail this second option in detail.

If you have enabled this feature, after submission of a Form the responder can see an additional button to view his score.

He can click this button to view his score. But as the Forms' editor, you must review his answer first and put the score. Then only the responder can view his score.

Once you receive a response, you can set a score from the Google Docs Form edit window. There check the tab "Responses" and click on the "Individual" tab and put your score for questions.

That's all about setting up of Google Docs Forms.

How to Use Linear Scale in Google Forms

Source: https://infoinspired.com/google-docs/forms/setting-up-of-google-docs-forms/

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