This is for everyone who has had to create forms on a website to collect information. Unless there is some sort of automatic widget built in to your content management system this can be a complicated or time-consuming task. Google has made this ridiculously simple though so in case you aren’t aware I thought I would share with you how easy it is to make a slick little data collection form in just a few steps.
- Create a Google account (https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount) or if you already have a Gmail account just login and click the “documents” link at the very top to login into your Google docs account.
- Once there Click the “create new” drop-down button in the upper left and select “form”
- From here give the form a name and then you can just start filling in what you want the questions to be. Just keep adding until you are done. You can create simple text fields or get fancier and create multiple-choice buttons and drop down selections.In this example I thought I would make a quick and easy way for me to record what I have planted in my garden. I tend to forget and wonder what that plant is. I always think I will remember what it is and where I got it but never do!
- All the information above is collected into an online spreadsheet that you download and open in excel or just store and access on Google docs. You can even share with your friends and co-workers the information. Depending on the information inputted Google will also create a summary of the information with charts where appropriate.
- Google also has a number of themes you can choose from. In this page the garden theme works perfectly.
- The next step is to embed this form on your website which Google does through the use of an iframe. You can select “embed this form” under the “More actions” button. Copy the little bit of code and paste the HTML into the HTML of your website and you are done.
- Unfortunately there aren’t too many themes to choose from and Google doesn’t yet allow you to create your own and you can’t modify the colors, fonts or images by the steps mentioned above.
- If you want most of the functionality of the form but want to edit the appearance then you will have to click “view this form” at the bottom and then view the source code in your browser. Copy the code and paste it into your HTML view of your web-editing program. From there you can edit the CSS and alter the appearance and images of the form to match your site. I will get into this in a later blog post in there is interest.
The coolest thing for me is that now I can update what I have done in the garden without having to go to my computer. I just open my iPhone (picture of my scarecrow on the home screen btw) and bring the web page up in the browser and input what I have done right there in the garden before I forget!
