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Survey Design Tips with EZSurvey
- Come up with a unified appearance when you first start building the survey. Plan out the
colors, tables of questions, and make some decisions about where page breaks will be. Design the
first page or two, or build a few pages that are representative of the question set. Perfect these
pages, then when you are reasonably satisfied, build the rest of the form. This approach will save
you from making sweeping changes later in the process.
- Put a title heading on the first page and let it be carried over to subsequent pages.
Sometimes, it's nice to have both the title of the questionnaire, and a section title for the
particular part of the questionnaire that you're in. Having a title and/or a section title on every
page gives the questionnaire continuity. Even a simple banner with a background color, logo and
text will give a more finished appearance.
- Don't use too much of the page. Some monitors will cut off text close to the edge of the
screen.
- Avoid putting lots of questions on a page. Ideally, it's good to have one question per page
so the form looks uncluttered and the respondent won't skip questions. Attitudinal surveys benefit
most from having one question per page to lessen the influence that one question has on the response
given to another. In most multi-page forms, the questions (and navigation buttons) should not
extend past the bottom of the screen.
- Choose your background colors carefully if the survey will be run on a large number of
machines. Likewise, try the survey out on a computer with a low-resolution monitor (800 by 600, or
less), or set your monitor to a lower resolution to check appearance.
- Check spelling. Use EZSurvey's built in spelling checker before making the final draft of
your form.
- Don't have your respondents start the survey out of nowhere. Be sure you have introductory
pages that tell a bit about why the survey is important, and any relevant instructions. The level
of instruction needed depends on how well the survey is designed and how web-savvy the intended
audience is.
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