Making your survey dynamic is one of the easiest ways to engage the respondent and make his or her experience more memorable. Why is that critical to your success? Engaged respondents are more apt to provide robust opinions and make it through to complete the survey. After all, as market researchers isn’t that our holy grail…robust data and higher survey completion rates?
How do we go about making our surveys more dynamic? With the advent of online survey platforms there is no reason why survey authors cannot tailor the survey experience to the responses provided by the participant. All it takes it a bit of logic.
There are several forms of logic built into tools such as Cvent including; branching, masking and piping to name a few. Each has its own specific purpose and all can be leveraged in the same questionnaire design.
Branching allows the survey creator to specify a pathway for the respondent (aka the branch). For example if respondents are asked if they are an individual contributor or a manager, then separate branches can be designated for each of these options. This allows the participant only to see questions appropriate for them.
Skipping is a form of branching that allows the survey author to move respondents from one section to another. For example, participants that do not want to participate in an incentive drawing can be skipped to the Thank You page, avoiding all contact information.
Masking allows you to present a subset of choice categories based upon those selected (or not selected) from a prior question. For example in a multiple response question participants are asked to select their favorite beverages. In a subsequent question only those beverages selected will be showed as part of a ranking exercise.
Piping allows the author to pipe in words or phrases from one question into a subsequent question. For example if participants are asked to select their favorite fast-food restaurant, let’s say Del Taco, then Del taco can be inserted (or piped) into following questions using {[PIPE1]}. The pipe command can be used to insert a selected answer into the question text or as an answer category. For example:
“How often do you eat at {[PIPE1]}” becomes “How often do you eat at Del Taco”
The use of logic to add dynamics to a survey will make the experience more rewarding for the participant and allow the survey author to collect data that is relevant and actionable.