How to create Google Forms on a mobile device

Creating forms is one of many tasks you may want to accomplish during brief periods when you may not have access to your laptop. The question is, can you do that?

It’s always easier to have a keyboard when you’re doing things like creating forms — that way, you can name questions and answers. A smaller screen may make it more difficult to work on a long or complex form, but beyond that, is it possible to use a tool like Google Forms on a mobile device?

Does Google Forms work on mobile?

The short answer is yes. Google is a big fan of what’s known as responsive web design.

If you’re not familiar with the term, responsive web design is a flexible web-building technique. It allows the layout, structure, and other design elements of a website to change in order to match the screen they’re contained in.

If you’re using a computer with a windowed browser like Chrome or Safari, you can see it in action right now. If you resize the browser window, you’ll see images resize, text reposition, and elements change their location to fit the smaller screen.

Does Google Forms have a mobile app?

Unfortunately, Google Forms doesn’t offer a native mobile app for either iOS or Android.

There are a few standalone tools that may wrap the website as a mobile app, but Google doesn’t offer or support an official tool.

Does Google Forms offer mobile browser support?

A while back, Google made a change to its search engine algorithm that ranks websites that aren’t mobile-friendly lower in search results. That’s where responsive web design comes in. It makes a website mobile-friendly without having to create a whole other website just for mobile users.

So, naturally, everything put out by Google is mobile-friendly. Google Forms is no exception.

How do you create a Google Form on mobile?

Let’s walk through the process of creating and editing a form from a mobile browser.

Creating a form

First, go to Google Forms on a browser on your mobile device.

If you do that from a computer’s browser, it will take you to a page that lets you choose whether you want to create a new form from scratch or from a template. It also gives you the option to open an existing form you’ve created before.

On a mobile device, however, opening Google Forms automatically creates a brand new form for you to work on. (You may have to sign in to Google if you haven’t already.)

Image of the Google Forms website on their mobile browser

Editing the header

If you have experience with the desktop version of Google Forms, this should look familiar to you.

When you create a form, you’ll see a header element where you can add a title for the form and one default question field. Give your form a title (otherwise, it will default to “Untitled Form”). The form description is optional.

The settings and design options are the same as on a desktop, just presented in a more compact form.

Adding and editing questions

By default, Google Forms displays a multiple-choice question field.

Image of the Google Forms interface displaying a multiple-choice question field as the default question type

One thing that may throw you off is that the menu to add form elements and new questions is located at the bottom of the page instead of on the side. But all the features are still there.

A simpler way to create forms on a mobile device

No matter how well-designed a browser-based app is, it will always feel a little bit off on a mobile device. For one, it won’t have an easy-to-access icon on your home screen. And an app that’s meant to work specifically on your phone just feels better, like a well-tailored suit vs one you’ve just pulled off of a rack at a thrift store.

If you’re looking for a more full-featured form tool that works natively on mobile devices, you can’t go wrong with Jotform Mobile Forms. Like Google Forms, Jotform is free to use — you only have to opt in to a paid plan when you exceed certain limits on forms, submissions, or storage. It’s also one of the most feature-rich form builders available.

Not only does Jotform let you create forms from its Mobile Forms app, it also gives your users a native app experience to fill out your forms as well. Try it out today.

Photo by Freestocks on Unsplash

This article is originally published on Feb 11, 2023, and updated on Mar 17, 2023.
AUTHOR
Lee Nathan is a personal development and productivity technology writer. He can be found at leenathan.com.

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