How to Use Poll Gadget 2.0 in Google Wave

Google Wave Poll Gadget Google Wave has a basic “Yes/No/Maybe” gadget but this can be a bit limiting when you have a question for participants in a wave that goes beyond a yes, no, or maybe answer. Poll Gadget 2.0 allows you to create a custom poll with custom options and settings. It’s one of the best customizable poll gadgets that I’ve used so far.

Here’s how you can add it to a wave.

First, click the “Add Gadget by URL” button in the toolbar of the wave that you’d like to add the poll gadget to. When the prompt comes up, enter “http://wave.samuirai.de/poll20.xml” in the text box and click “Add.”

The poll gadget will load up in your wave.

In the main text box, you can type the question or reason for your poll. To add options simply click the “add options” link in the bottom left corner.

If you click the “settings” link, you have a few options for how you want your poll to function. If you select “hide the poll,” as a vote, you won’t be able to view the results of the poll until you vote. If you select “don’t allow correction,” once participants vote, they won’t be able to change their vote. If you select “share the poll,” all participants in the wave will be able to change the title of the poll, add options, and edit the poll’s settings. If you select “anonym,” participants won’t be able to see what others voted for. You can also change the number of votes each participant receives and the design of the poll.

Anytime you change these settings the poll is reset.

If you click the “diagrams” link at the bottom of the poll, you can see the results of the poll rendered into a pie chart.

Overall, the Poll Gadget 2.0 offers a lot of options to create a simple poll. It’s helpful that you can create the poll to be anonymous as well and that you are able to have some sort of feature to prohibit others from editing the poll. I have doubts that it would be reliable for gathering any type of scientific data, but it provides much more flexibility than the “Yes/No/Maybe” gadget.

10 Comments to “How to Use Poll Gadget 2.0 in Google Wave”

Cristina 22 January 2010 at 5:56 pm #

Though I installed Google Gears, I don’t have the GW toolbar. How can I see it?

[please forward the answer to my email too, thanks!]
Brett 22 January 2010 at 10:42 pm #

Cristina, I’m afraid I don’t quite understand what you are asking. I’m a bit confused about your question and how it relates to the poll gadget. Perhaps I’m just misunderstanding your question though.
Cristina 23 January 2010 at 5:26 pm #

Brett, The poll gadget is located onto the GW toolbar, isn’t it?

Meanwhile, I found my GW toolbar… sorry, I asked a lot of stupid questions yesterday… it was my first day playing with GW.
Brett 23 January 2010 at 10:42 pm #

Cristina, I understand now! I apologize. The poll gadget isn’t located on the Google Wave toolbar, but the “Add Gadget by URL” button is. Just click that and then enter the poll gadget URL in: http://wave.samuirai.de/poll20.xml

Wave is a bit confusing at a first glance!
Samuirai 30 January 2010 at 6:19 pm #

Hey,
thank you very much for introducing my gadget. I was bored so i startet to google “Poll Gadget 2.0″ and I didn’t expect, that someone would write something about it
Brett 31 January 2010 at 5:29 pm #

Hey Samuirai, you’re welcome. It’s a cool gadget! Have you developed any other gadgets or extensions?
Samuirai 1 February 2010 at 8:56 am #

on my website wave.samuirai.de you can find some other gadgets, but i wrote only 3. Dou you have any ideas or wishes what could be great for wave?
Highway 22 February 2010 at 7:57 pm #

Great app but lots of spelling errors.
zabaki 3 March 2010 at 12:39 am #

Is there a limited amount of questions you can add to the poll?

I have a lot of different questions, but i cant seem to add more than 11 questions.

Could you change that?
MarkhamX 10 March 2010 at 9:15 pm #

Does this gadget not work with the google blogger?