Beyond Yes/No/Maybe: Gathering Feedback in waves

One fact is very clear on the web: people love polls, and people love seeing poll results. That's probably why the "Yes/No/Maybe" gadget, which is installed by default for all Google Wave users, is our most popular extension. People use it to find out things like who will be attending an event or who agrees with a certain opinion. I've even seen some users repurpose it to do polls, like "What should I paint my house, Red or Blue?", and instruct people to say "Yes" for one option and "No" for the other. But, now that we've added two new feedback extensions to the extensions gallery, you no longer have to repurpose Yes/No/Maybe -- just use the extension that's best for the job.


Pollo Gadget

Sometimes you want a full-featured survey in your wave, to get opinions from participants on a variety of options - that's what this gadget enables. Participants can vote for an existing option or add a new one if their favorite isn't listed. Additionally, any participant can modify the configuration for the poll, like whether participants can vote multiple times, whether to show people's avatars next to their vote, and more.

You can use Pollo to gather opinions from colleagues about work conditions (like the Greek food in the cafe, yum), ask conference attendees about their background, or vote on the best submissions in a contest.

If you like that gadget, you might also want to try out these extensions: Poll Gadget, Yes/No/Maybe+, and Decing.



Likey

Sometimes you just want to sprinkle your wave with little approval/disapproval widgets, to see whether other participants agree. The Likey gadget displays "Like|Dislike", the number of participants that have clicked "Like" or "Dislike", and an indicator of what you clicked.

You can use Likey to figure out which items people like on a restaurant menu (we do this with internal cafe menus), vote on movies you're thinking of watching with friends, or learn what your teammates think about specific product feature requests.

If you like that gadget, you might also want to try out these extensions: PlusOne Gadget and Like-it.

Waffle

Other times, you have a really specific objective: finding out the best date for a particular event. The Waffle gadget is perfect for that - it lets users add on potential dates, indicate "yes/no/maybe" for each date, and then summarizes the results for each date. And yes, it does look a bit like a Waffle.

You could use it to decide when to watch a movie, figure out when your team members are going on vacation, or schedule a round of beer nights.

Please try out these extensions, and let us know what you think in the user help forum. Give us feedback on how you gathered feedback!

Posted by Pamela Fox, Developer Relations, Google Wave Team