Learn how dynamic websites offer you a chance to create your own opinion polls and surveys!

The web is normally thought of as a browse-only surf-only medium where information can be viewed or downloaded. Though this is true and in fact it is how the internet is mostly used, today's dynamic websites actually offer much more such as creating your own opinion polls and surveys!

Yes, it is possible to easily design your own online questionnaire and pass the address across to friends or class fellows and get results in a graphical format. Let's start off with a site that lets you do just that for free, its called SurveyGizmo.com.

Get yourself registered at SurveyGizmo and by clicking the 'Design a survey now' button on the home page. Enter first name, last name, email, password and confirm password. Make sure 'Free' option is selected and press 'Create your account' button. The registration is complete now, so press 'Click to login now' button to enter the SurveyBuilder dashboard. On the left, there are two links — 'Create Survey' and 'Create Poll', and a welcome note is displayed in centre that reads 'Create your first survey link'. Select any of these to get started.

Creating a survey is fairly easy — still it is suggested that a rough draft is in mind or sketched out over paper first, particularly when multiple choices are to be provided for selection. The first step is to give a title to the survey. Next, select how to start a new survey. Available options are 'Blank', 'Existing' and 'Template', select 'Blank'. Optionally, select a theme if survey is to be made aesthetically appealing, and finally press 'Create Survey >> Add Questions' button.

Here, a green arrow is displayed with a get started link leading to add questions link. This brings the question insertion screen with a large number of question types — and that's the strength of SurveyGizmo. Under 'Open Text Field', free form text fields can be placed for small text, large text, multiple fields, or a table to capture text under multiple headings — for e.g., your favourite player in football, cricket and tennis.

The other group of question types is 'Multiple Choice/ Select Items'. Respondents can be asked questions in what is called radio button where only one answer could be selected — say at what position you play in your football team attacker, mid-field or defender. A drop-down list can also be created in the same way.

To allow multiple selection, 'Checkbox' option can be selected to ask questions such as which games you played this summer. A rating scale can be created allowing visitors to rank an item on a scale of say one to five by using text labels for each rank such as poor to outstanding.

One interesting option of survey question is selection based on images, allowing survey respondents to choose an image as answer. This can be great way for visual tests — such as identify the monument or city, or even rank which scanned image of a handmade drawing is the best. Some advanced question types can be created using 'Ordering/ Ranking' options. Enter the question text and set its options such as making it mandatory.

 At the bottom, select if more questions are to be added, and at the end, select 'Return to Survey Editor' that lists all questions that can be edited or deleted etc. On the right of 'Survey Editor' tab, there's 'Publish' tab that allows the design mode survey to go live through 'Launch your survey now' button. This results in creation of a survey link that can be sent out to friends.

Next time you login, take a look at 'Reports' tab where customer reports can be created or default 'Summary Report' can be viewed that shows graphs and average results of the survey.

SurveyGizmo and other such websites such as ZohoPolls.com can be used for a variety of requirements — from classroom research, such as for assignments related to marketing or sociology, to satisfaction survey, etc. Or even for pure fun — votes for next the holiday destination, assess who's most popular in a friends circle or be a personal quiz master!