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Paper to Online Surveys: Dynamic Show / Hide Tricks

Posted by 2 Responses Filed in: Features

In paper surveys, you have no way to skip questions without telling the respondent directly, “Answer this, don’t answer that.” This creates fatigue for your survey respondent and maybe more importantly, wastes paper! Using online surveys, you can improve on both of these fronts: no paper used and no unnecessary questions!

In a classic example, a yes or no question is followed by one or two questions that refer to the previous question, such as, “If your answer to Question #1 was yes…” If you were to build this into a SurveyGizmo survey, you would need to make sure the follow-up question was not required. Otherwise, the respondent could only continue to the next page if they answered the question that doesn’t apply to them!

But alas, the answer is simple, and the process is covered in our Dynamic Show/Hide Tutorial. The feature is available with all paid plan levels and offers an elegant solution: only show the respondent the questions that are relevant to them! In other words, show only the ‘yes’ question if they actually choose ‘Yes’ in Question #1! Even better, you can choose to require the follow-up question if you want to ensure they answer the question before continuing to the next page. With the show/hide triggers, only if the question is visible will a required question stop them from moving forward without answering.

new powerful style

Check out the tutorial and make a leaner, meaner (kinder?) online survey!

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  • Richard – BluSky Marketing

    Hi,

    Good post. A great point to make that online surveys are environmentally friendly and don’t waster paper, and also improve the user experience.

    Cheers,

    Richard

    • http://www.surveygizmo.com brittany

      Hi Richard,
      Definitely. Online surveys are much easier and user friendly than paper surveys.
      Thanks!
      Brittany

About the Author

Mario Lurig
Technical Training Manager at SurveyGizmo. Mario hails from Reunion, France off the coast of Madagascar in the middle of the Indian Ocean… no, really… then Kenya, United Arab Emirates, and Florida till 2004. He is an author of two books: an ebook of conversation starters and a PHP book. He is also an avid cyclist and tennis player, and is 1-0 in knife fights. His most recent project benefits authors tracking amazon sales rank.

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