The pros and cons of Google Forms
July 01, 2016
The pros and cons of Google Forms
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Google Forms
Google Forms was used by myself for creating surveys for one of my research projects. I also use it for my clubs and for class work. These forms are normally used to connect people for housing, ride share, etc. Users can enter their "needs" and it will be submitted into a spreadsheet. Then other users who are providing those specific services can contact the users based on the info they have given.
- Easy to use interface makes creating and deploying forms easy. Any user with average computer knowledge can create forms and deploy it.
- The wizard is simple to use. A What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get interface makes it easy to drag and drop form elements and organizing them based on actions or events.
- The forms are integrated with Google Sheets which gives a spreadsheet view of the data collected, making it easy to analyze.
- The type of data that can be inserted into a field can be customized based on regular expressions for advanced users. This gives the ability to customize the form even further.
- The design customization for the form is very limited. If the users could change the design to make it look for formal, then it can be used for more purposes.
- If the forms provide APIs for the data, then the developers will be able to collect and analyze the data even faster.
- Sometimes developers tend to like more dynamic interfaces. For example, instead of the WYSIWYG interface, if there was a way to build these forms themselves using HTML or other languages, then it gives users more control over their forms.
- It saved a lot of effort to build the research survey as the whole procedure was completed within half an hour as opposed to the long time I would have taken in Mechanical Turk.
Google Forms allow unlimited questions and responses without any cost, whereas SurveyMonkey requires payment based on the audience and questions. It was easier to use Google Forms compared to SurveyMonkey, as it had a very easy to use interface. Moreover, the fact that Google Forms is used by many people makes it something that everyone is familiar with.