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Available Question Types & Formatting

It's easy to add questions to your survey. Just open the survey editor, click [Add Question] and select a question type. For extra tips about designing effective surveys, see our Smart Survey Design Guide.

Design Icon

To open the Survey Editor, click the Design Icon from your My Surveys page. In the editor, click [Add Question Here] to select a question type.  (Available question types)

Click for topic:  Click to Watch the Design Editor in action!

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Click the [Add Question Here] Button
  1. Click the [Add Question Here] button to open the Question Editor.
  2. Choose the question type from the drop-down menu.
  3. Create your question and click [Save Changes]. 

* Clicking the [save changes] button automatically updates your survey with the new question. There's no additional save button to click as explained below.

 

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Select a question type to open the question design editor

Question Types:

Adding New Questions

Click for topic: Working model of available question types

Example: To create a single menu of drop-down choices, select Multiple Choice (Only One Answer) for the question type and choose Drop-down Menu for the display format. 

  1. Multiple Choice (Only One Answer)
  2. Display Choices as a Drop-down Menu

 

* Optional Formating

Validate Text Image

Required Question Feature explanation

Optional: to change the size of the question on the page or to place the question beside the previous question, select the change question size and placement option. 

Change Question Size Image

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Save Question

After creating your question and selecting the desired options for the question, click the [Save Changes] button to add the question to your survey.

Questions Saved

* The survey automatically saves and updates as you save questions by clicking [Save Changes]. The survey updates and opens to the page where the question was added, there' nothing else to do. Everything saves and is ready to go each time you add questions! To add an additional question to the page, click the [Add Question Here] button. Step by step directions
What do I do if I receive an error when trying to save a question?

Please scroll through the question settings to see if you have omitted part of the question text or error message text.

Check for errors image

How Can I Edit Questions?

Design Icon

You may edit questions any time by clicking the [Edit Question] button above the quesiton. To Edit a Question after saving it, click the [Edit Question] button from the Design Editor. Note: Editing is limited for questions with results.

Open Collector icon

  Can I edit the survey after collecting responses?
  How to add page breaks and modify page description
 

Tip!

Adding page breaks is a really good idea because the results for the questions are saved when respondents successfully advance to the next page. When they exit the survey your results are saved for only those questions that have been saved by clicking the Next link and successfully advancing. If you have a one page survey, there's a chance respondents will select all of their responses and click the Exit Survey link instead of the Done button or get a required question error and quit. In that case, no responses would be recorded for those respondents.
 Another possible hitch with a single page survey is with required questions. If you have set required questions or text validation, responses cannot be saved until they have all been answered correctly. To split pages, click the [Split Page Here] button. When doing so, a page break will be added and the following questions are moved to the next page.
 

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Common Questions

Question
Can I create a Semantic Differential Scales or Likert Scale question type?
 
 Support Answer

We offer a Ranking Question Type for you to rank or rate respondent's opinions. However, we do not offer a way to include two bipolar adjectives on opposite ends of the scale for each row of the question. You can format the question to include the bipolar adjectives above the column label with each Ranking or rating scale question type. This question type calculates a response average for you.

Examples in survey format

Ex: How important do you think standardized test scores are for a student's education?

Select a number 1 through 5 where 1 is Not very import and 5 is Extremely important.

  • You can adjust the spacing of the answer selections using HTML coding.

Not important

   Extremely important     
          12          3       4                   5  

Likert scales assign a score or "weight" to each answer choice, usually from 1 to 5.

Usually, the position marked 3 is labeled "neutral," the 2 and 4 positions are labeled "slightly" or "somewhat," the 1 and 5 positions "extremely." A scale like this one measures directionality of a reaction (e.g., good versus bad) and also intensity (slight to extreme). Typically, a person is presented with some concept of interest, e.g., web site design, and asked to rate it on a number of such scales. Ratings are combined in various ways to describe and analyze the person's feelings.

Creating the Semantic Differential Scale question type with different bipolar adjectives is slightly more complicated - we do not have a way to change the labels for each option in a matrix style question. To create the appearance of this type of question, you must create multiple questions and use HTML coding or edit your page numbers to format the multiple questions to appear as a single question. Click here to see examples in survey format.