Microsoft Forms continues its streak of innovations, bringing a host of new features designed to augment the experience of form creators and respondents. The announcement made by Junyu Bao on June 30, 2023, highlights significant improvements to form creation and presentation processes, enhanced polling experience in Teams, and the introduction of AI support for form creation.
Introducing Live Presentations
To boost audience engagement, Microsoft has integrated a live presentation feature into Forms. Users can now share forms or quizzes in any online or in-person event, just with a quick QR scan or short URL. This enables audiences to participate in live surveys and view responses in real-time.
Present Mode and Dynamic Real-Time Results
The newly introduced present mode ensures easy accessibility for audiences. All they need to do is enter the URL or scan the QR code, and they can access the form online or offline. More impressively, form creators no longer need to navigate back to the response page to check answers. They’re visible right on the question screen, and when new responses come in, the results dynamically update to reflect the latest information.
AI Suggestions for Better Forms
Microsoft Forms is now harnessing the power of AI to help create aesthetically pleasing, professional forms. Based on the title input, the AI suggests multiple themes, enabling users to explore different possibilities and choose one that suits their form’s purpose and aesthetic. Furthermore, the AI provides tips for form management, such as survey length evaluation and form description suggestions.
Enhanced Experience for Respondents
Understanding the need for flexibility, Microsoft now allows respondents to save and edit their responses. Respondents can now revisit their inputs and modify them if needed, ensuring accurate, up-to-date feedback. This functionality also allows respondents to save their responses for future reference, a boon for those filling out detailed forms or quizzes.
Polls in Teams Channel Meetings
Forms are enhancing the Teams experience by introducing support for polls in channel meetings. Polls have become a popular tool to increase audience engagement in Teams meetings, and this update brings the interactive power of polls to channel meetings, making them more accessible than ever.
What’s On The Horizon?
Microsoft is also teasing a few more updates in the coming months. An upgraded Forms PowerPoint add-on, expected in July 2023, promises to revolutionize audience engagement by enabling presenters to interact with real-time responses without opening another browser or navigating across multiple screens.
Come August 2023, the Forms start page on office.com will be enhanced based on customer feedback. This aims to resolve all feature gaps between the portal page on office.com and forms.office.com, ensuring a seamless and consistent user experience across both platforms.
As always, the Microsoft team encourages user feedback on these new features and those on the horizon. The latest updates to Microsoft Forms are designed to make form creation, presentation, and response management more efficient and engaging, paving the way for enhanced audience interaction and streamlined workflows. The future holds even more potential as Microsoft continues to invest in AI and user feedback to shape the evolution of Forms.
