To ensure that visual questions work correctly, consider these recommended best practices when you design these questions.
Software considerations
Knowing the participants' operating system and web browser helps you to ensure that the visual questions work correctly for them.
System information is captured for each participant by the BrowserStats question. For more information, see System questions.
Web browsers
The participants' web browser does not have a big impact on the question design, but different browsers use different amounts of screen space for toolbars, menu bars, status bars, and other user interface elements. This affects the amount of space the participants have to view and answer visual questions.
Screen space considerations
Consider the participants' screen resolution settings and their browser window size. If the question is bigger than 700 px long and 950 px wide when you view it in the Layout Manager, it uses more than the recommended browser window size.
Screen resolution
Participants use different screen resolutions, which affect how questions appear to them. Ensure that you consider different screen resolutions when you create and test visual question layouts.
It is recommended that you collect information about your participants' screen resolution settings and your questions using those resolutions. Applications such as Google Analytics collect that information from your web site.
Browser window size
Participants may not maximize their browser windows. This may be related to the operating system as noted in the Software considerations section above.
To ensure that the entire question fits in the available viewing area of the browser window, test the questions in different browser window sizes with different resolution settings. Participants should not have to scroll to see the question text and answer options.
Drag and drop
Ensure that drag operations can be performed within view. Test your questions using a few different browser window sizes on screens with different resolution settings.
Question writing tips
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Use a consistent order for scale questions
Example
You use a five-point agreement scale with answers that range from Agree Completely to Disagree Completely. You place the most positive answers on the left and the least positive answers on the right.
The next question uses a similar agreement scale, and you place the most positive responses on the left and the last positive answers on the right.
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Emphasize special or unique instructions using bold text.
For example,
Please select three or more answers.
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Button Order
In Multi Choice Button questions, where items are ordered alphabetically or chronologically, order the buttons top down and then left to right for better readability.