Quick Poll is an easy to use polling application that uses SMS text messaging to send and receive poll information. After you create a poll question and some answer choices, you can send the poll with instructions to anyone with a cell phone that supports text messaging. The poll taker then sends a text back with their choice, and Quick Poll will add it to the results tab.

After receiving votes, you will see the chart in the Results tab update with the responses. You can then send the poll results back the people who voted.

You can find Quick Poll in the Android Market by searching for the words "Quick Poll".  The initial version is fully functional, but will partially expire on October 15th. I plan on replacing it with a low cost paid version some time after the Android Developer challenge. However, the only thing that is expiring is the function to send the poll.  All other functions will continue to work, including receiving votes.

Requirements

Only the poll creator needs to run the Quick Poll application. The people taking the poll do not need to run Quick Poll, and they do not need Internet access or a data plan. Communication is completely SMS based, so the poll takers only need a regular cell phone with texting capabilities.

In order to capture votes, Quick Poll must be running. If you see the Quick Poll icon in the notification area, you know that Quick Poll is running. You can force Quick Poll to completely shut down by pressing the Menu button and clicking the Close App button.

Note that when you receive a new vote, the Quick Poll notification icon will change to a more colorful version.

When Quick Poll is running in the background, it isn't using CPU and won't drain the battery.  Quick Poll is designed to wake up when it receives a new text message - it doesn't continually check for new messages.

Getting Started

The general flow of using Quick Poll is:

• Create a poll question on the Poll tab
• Send the poll to people in the Send To tab
• When people reply back, see the results in the Results tab

The Poll Tab

When you use Quick Poll for the first time, an example poll will be created for you. Since you haven't sent poll out to anyone and received votes, you may want to edit this poll by pressing the menu button, selecting Edit Poll, and changing the question and choice options. Make sure you click the Save button at the bottom of this screen!

In general, it's better to create a new poll after you receive your first vote, rather than editing an existing poll. For example, if you sent out a poll with 5 choices and received votes, then edited the poll to only have 3 choices, the original votes wouldn't make sense because they wouldn't match the new choices. However, if you really want to change an existing poll and throw away the old votes, you can do that by going to the Results tab, pressing the menu button and clicking the Clear Results option.

Note that poll results always stay with the poll. For example, lets say you received 20 votes for your first poll question, then created a new poll. The results will show up as empty for your new question, but if you loaded the old poll, the results from that poll would be loaded back and be visible in the Results tab.

The Send To Tab

The Send To tab is used to maintain a list of people to send the poll to. To add a person to the list, pressing the menu button, then click Add Person. This will let you add a person from your phone's address book. To remove a person, long press on the person's name and select Remove Individual.

You can send the poll to an individual by long clicking their name and selecting Send Poll To, or you can send the poll to everyone on the list by pressing the menu button and clicking "Send Poll To All"

Note: Quick Poll will accept votes from anyone - not just the ones you send the poll to. For example, a teacher could write their cell phone on a white board and ask students to text their vote to that number, without having to send the poll to each student.

When you send a poll to either a person or to everyone in your Send To list, you will be able to review and change the poll instructions before they are sent.

The Results Tab

As you receive votes, the Results tab will be updated to show a chart summarizing all of the votes. From this tab, you can also send the results back to everyone who voted. To do this, press the menu button and click "Send Results To Participants".

The Quick Poll Voting Syntax

Quick Poll requires votes to be in a particular format. The vote message should start with the word "VOTE" followed by number between 1 and 9.

Future versions of Quick Poll will support additional formats, allowing for unrestricted polls (vote for anything) and accepting votes for multiple simultaneous polls.

Quick Poll Options