This tutorial was written by Digital Studio Student Assistant, Jonathan Joint. Learn more about Jonathan and our other student assistants here.

Google Forms is an essential tool for college students, teachers, and faculty members alike. And for the student leaders who are very much involved in extracurricular activities that may require things like conducting surveys, registration sheets, Google Forms is a great fit.

In this tutorial, I will show you how to create your own forms from scratch as well as how to use some of the Google templates as your foundation. On top of showing you how to add questions to it, I will also share some tips that will really enhance your forms– including ways to add photos and videos from a number of options.

How To Get Started

Using Google Forms is free with an existing Google account. And if you don’t currently have a Google account, you can sign up for one for free. But if you have an existing Google Account, simply click here. Otherwise, once you’ve signed up, you can access the Forms by first going to the “Drive” icon as magnified to get yourself started.

Creating/Editing Forms

Now that you are all set with all the initial set-up, you can jump to the fun stuff and begin to create and design your personalized google form. From this page, you want to click on “New” to begin a new project– then hover over “More” and then you will see the icon for “Google Forms” as one of the options, if not your first option. Refer to the images below.

Your PC or laptop will automatically open up a new browser for you with a templated format titled “Untitled Forms.” First and foremost, begin with adding a title to your form so that people will know exactly what this document is for. Google even gives you the option to add a quick description right below the title space in case you want to add a brief description that is going to personalize your form even more.

Another great plus about Google Forms is that you do not have to continually save your progress, as changes are saved automatically.

On this page you will also notice a gray shaded rectangle rectangle to the right of “Digital Lab Studio” (This is the question box) which gives you the options of choosing the form of answers you will be accepting. So much control!–I know right. So then you would then edit yours with your question, and if you have a short answer like I do, you would then move on to the next question you would like to be answered.

To add subsequent questions, you would simply hit the plus sign to the right, which will then create a brand new question box. Keep in mind that you can choose many different question forms and thus bundling a good of them. In the event that you accidentally create a new question box, you can delete it by clicking on the trash can icon at the bottom of the screen. Another great feature is the option to mark a question as a “required” question. This means that the person responding to the survey for example will not be able to submit the survey unless they answer that question.

Attaching Images and Videos

Adding an image or video can be done from the exact same taskbar to the right of the forms as illustrated below. This feature plays a huge role in giving you more creative freedom in creating your Google Form. As you will see, your options for videos or images are infinite because you are able to access videos from Youtube and search for images using the Google Search engine.

Choosing a Theme and Design

Now that you have the important details of your Google Forms done, things are easier from this point on. Now as a default, Google Forms gives you a purple background which you may or may not like. But again, the good news is that you have a plethora of options. You could also decide whether you just want to change the summer or choose an entirely new theme with the sub-option of uploading your own theme. As you can see, there is plenty of room for creativity using Google Forms.

Choosing a Google Template

Lastly, I will capitalize on my promise of teaching you how to start your process by exercising your option of choosing from one of Google’s storage of templates. Now the quickest way for you to do this is by clicking here. You’re welcome. But if you’d like to know how to work your way through this, here’s how: Go to this “Drive” page (as illustrated below), and follow the initial steps as you would when you are creating a new form. But now you have one extra step– simply hover around the little arrow to the right, which gives you the option of starting with a new form or template.

Once there, you will initially only see four options to choose from, but don’t worry, there are plenty more. Simply click the arrow at the top right by “Template Gallery” and all of the different options will be opened up to you. Now all you have to do is choose on the most suitable one for you and click it. And you can start editing the template to make it your own.

Good luck! And thank you for choosing my blog post!