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Survey question types explained
Survey question types explained

Learn how to use single line, essay, radio button, checkbox, dropdown, likert, date, ranking and email question types.

Gayathri Rajendiran avatar
Written by Gayathri Rajendiran
Updated over a week ago

Once you have added the new Survey topic, you are ready to start creating the content for your Survey.
TIP - Watch our webinar on Building Effective Surveys for guidance on designing surveys that encourage meaningful participation from your audience.

In your survey, you may like to collect different types of information from the participant. For this, as you add each question to the survey, you'll be able to choose from a variety of questions ranging from the objective type, like Radio buttons and Checkboxes, to the descriptive type such as the Single line and Essay.

The sections below describe each of the question types :

NOTE -

  1. The timestamp of when the survey was last saved, is displayed on the top section of the survey.

  2. It is not possible to delete a question. You can hide these questions by disabling the toggle Active.

Open response questions

  • Single line: You can use this question type where the expected response is generally a short one-liner. There is no character limit for this question type. For example: Which city were you born in? 

You will notice that the font on all questions can be customized with Bold, Italics, and Underline options. The question can also be aligned and hyperlinked. The question field can also accommodate images and custom HTML codes.

All questions have an option asking to “Make this question mandatory”. If you turn this on, it becomes a mandatory question for the survey taker to answer before they are allowed to submit their response. You can limit the number of characters to the response by modifying the number displayed in the Restrict answer length option box provided. If you leave it without change, the maximum limit for the characters allowed is 255.

All questions also have a provision to Add Notes. This can be used to provide additional information or instructions on how to answer the question.

All questions also now have a "Duplicate" or copy option, to create a new replica of the question, as it is, to a new question number. Click the Duplicate Question button.

The exact same question is created again, with a new question number.

To save the question you should click on the button Add question, and then on the button Update to save the changes

Read our article on adding conditional logic in surveys, to understand how and when the Add Condition button appears and how it can be used.

  • Essay: You can add this question type when you want the participant to provide answers. There is no length restriction. There is no character limit for this question type.

  • Email: You can add this question type when you want participants to enter the email address in a specified format. The email entered here will be the only email address that will receive the acknowledgment email irrespective of the participant being logged in via a different email address. This feature works when the acknowledgment to user option is enabled in survey settings. There is no character limit for this question type.

  • Number: You can add this question type when you want the participants to only share numbers as an answer. There is no character limit for this question type.

  • File Upload: You can add this question type when you want the participants to upload a file as an answer to the question. This will allow only one file upload by the participant. There is no character limit for this question type.

Choice questions

  • Radio Buttons: You can add this question type when you want participants to choose only one answer from the list of answer choices. There is no character limit for this question type however, the option field can have a maximum of 254 characters.

The image below illustrates how the radio button is displayed to the participant:

You can choose the Randomize options to ensure the order is different or random every time the survey is taken.

You can add an image to each of the options by choosing the Convert to image question.

Choose the Align options horizontally in Options to show your answer choices in columns rather than vertically to the participants.

You can move the option choices within a question by using the handles provided next to each option created.

NOTE: Read our articles on when and how to use the Add Condition, or use Skip Logic and how to use the allow 'other' option.

  • Dropdown: You can add this question type when the participants are required to choose one answer from the multiple predefined answer choices provided. There is no character limit for this question type however, the option field can have a maximum of 254 characters.

The image below illustrates how the dropdown question is displayed to the participant:

And the image below illustrates how the options are displayed to the participant:

For this question type, similar to the radio box question type, you can move the options via handles, randomize the display of the options and allows the 'other' option.

  • Checkboxes: You can add this question type when you want the participants to choose one or more or all options from the answer choices. There is no character limit for this question type however, the option field can have a maximum of 254 characters.

    The image below illustrates how the checkbox is displayed to the participant:

You can ask your participants to narrow down their preferences or choices to a short list, rather than simply selecting every possible option, for example, if you are asking your participants which are the top two options they prefer, you might want to limit the number of responses to two. This allows the participant to select their preferred option, with a second “backup” option, but no more. You simply select a number in the “Limit options to (max)” option provided.

For this question type, similar to the radio box question type, you can move the options via handles, you have the option to add images, randomize the display of the options, display the options on the same line and allow the 'other' option.

  • Suburb: You can add this question type where the participants can search and choose from the list of suburb / locations (AU/NZ). There is no character limit for this question type. For the other regions (CA/US), you have the option to add the zip code question type. The difference between the two is that the zip code can be entered here for example : Fellowship, AL 36521

  • Date: You can add this question type when you want the participants to add a date in a particular format. There is no character limit for this question type. The participant will be shown a calendar to select the full date. If required, There is an option to get only the year, for that select the 'Collect only year' option.

If the 'Collect only year' option is selected, participants will see an input box with an optional dropdown containing the last 100 years and going some 50 years into the future.

Scale questions

  • Ranking: You can add this question type when you want the participants to rank a list of options. There is no character limit for this question type.

The image below illustrates how the ranking question is displayed to the participant:

And the image below illustrates how the options are displayed to the participant:

Note that once an option is selected for one rank then only the remaining options are presented to the participant for the next rank. In this example, Car has been selected for the 3rd rank hence it is not presented for the next option as shown below. 

Note - To understand how this question will be seen in reports read our article on Understanding the ranking question type in reports.

  • Likert: You can add this question type when you want the participants to answer in a matrix. You can set the rows as statements and columns as options to collect only one right answer per row. There is no character limit for this question type however, the option field can have a maximum of 254 characters.

The options for the columns come pre-filled with 5 choices, you can edit and/or delete them as required.

Note: The Likert options will now appear one below the other and not in a grid form when we use a stand-alone survey link

  • Emoji: The emoji question provides a standard set of the scale options. There is no character limit for this question however, the option field can have a maximum of 254 characters. When selected, the admin has the choice between three and five emojis. These emojis are standardized and in yellow. You are provided with an option to edit the label that appears alongside each emoji. Read more about the emoji question type.

On the participant side, each emoji will appear in grey until selected when it turns yellow.

Effectively, this can be related to a radio button type of question for reporting purposes. That means only one option can be selected and each option is the equivalent of a choice from one through to five.

Rearrange the order of questions in your survey

You can rearrange questions on a page at any time by dragging and dropping them with handles, as illustrated below.

Survey questions have different graph types to showcase their options and the number of participants who chose them. The representations are as follows:
Dropdown - Pie chart
Radio button - Pie chart
Checkbox - Bar chart
Date - Pie chart
Emoji - Pie chart
Suburb - Pie chart
Likert - Stacked bar chart

What's next?

You can also move questions to different pages of a survey. To learn how to create multi-page surveys and move questions between pages read the article on create long surveys and rearrange questions.

To learn how to add images, videos, rich text, HTML code and hyper-links read the detailed article on Adding multi-media to a survey!

Contact our support team if you need any further assistance via chat or email support@engagementhq.com

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