Work with mailshots, A/B testing and forms.

Test Google Form

I speculated for a while about the best way to survey former or potential students about various issues and tried a number of mailshot / form systems.

While Google Forms was quite good in some respects, especially in the free number of responses it could deal with, in others it was a little disappointing.

Here is a sample, created using Google Forms, so that you can see I have an understanding of running surveys and gathering results.

This particular form does in fact collect email addresses. It was never live and never will be, it is merely a test.

What I did not like very much about Google Forms was the limited ability to format the form, and use space nicely, and to vary the presentation style to suit an organisation.

That is not to dismiss it as an option, but just to be aware of pro's and con's.

Bear in mind that Google Forms does have a property to enable collecting of an email, but here I have not used it. I have simply put a text field to put an email address into. Asking a subject to provide an email as a way of agreeing to data collection is valid as long as reasons are given clearly to the subject.

Live Google Forms I have created have since been used on our website.

PDF fillable forms

I can create PDF fillable forms and electronically collect the results when filled in.

PDF files are a very effective way of collecting and collating information. And though the Adobe suite does offer SDK's to read form fields, it is a rather expensive solution for automating the reading of PDF data.

I have developed a procedure for using accompanying FDF and reading the records from that to automatically collect information from form based PDF files.

I have learned a lot about formatting PDF forms; Setting tabbing orders; Ensuring font compatibility; Ensuring that forms are easy to read and understand. There is actually quite a lot of thought that needs to go into developing forms for data collection.

Some fields can be free form text. Some need to be pick lists. Some numeric ... some formatted (for example phone numbers).

Here is the fillable version of the Placement Test form for our academy. (This one is a bit outdated now).