Design Questionnaire - Visual Editor

When constructing a questionnaire form, the easiest way is to use the Visual Editor. A few more advanced questionnaire creation options are available in the List Editor.

A questionnaire is composed of questions, organized into pages; pages are delineated by page breaks. The Visual Editor provides a way to create, edit, remove, move and copy questions and page breaks, and to bring in question sets from the question library.

Every question has a name, which are used for reference in operations such as branching and scripting. Names also are used to name the columns in database tables.

The Visual Editor displays the questionnaire the way that the respondent will see it, surrounded by a light blue box, with [ Add here] at the top and bottom, between the header and footer, like this:

As the mouse is moved over this area, different regions and questions are highlighted in orange, and a tool tip that says "Click for menu" displays. Clicking the mouse once causes the Visual Editor menu to appear where the mouse is located:

To close the menu, click on the [X] on the upper right hand side.

The menu has the following options:

• Edit. When the mouse is over a highlighted question, such as a radio button, clicking on Edit lets you revise the question.
• New. Lets you add a new question below the question which is currently highlighted. You will start by giving the question a name.
• Matrix. Lets you insert a matrix of questions right below the highlighted question. A matrix is a series of questions with identical answers, such as Likert rating scales. See Matrix Wizard.
• Grid. Lets you create a grid of similar questions repeated multiple times, such as financial data over multiple years. See Grid Editor.
• Page. Inserts a page break after the currently highlighted question. This indicates the end of one questionnaire page and the beginning of another.
• Delete. Removes the highlighted question or page break.
• Move. After clicking on Move, the highlighted question will be marked for moving. When the mouse moves again, it will highlight questions in a red color. A second mouse click moves the question below the red highlighted question. To cancel a Move, press the space bar.
• Copy. Same as Move, but a copy of the question is created below the red highlighted question. To cancel a Copy, press the space bar.
• Library. Allows inserting commonly used question setups from the question library.
• List editor. Switches away from the Visual Editor to the List Editor questionnaire designer, which allows moving and copying multiple questions, cutting and pasting questions to and from a clipboard, and renaming questions.

Other useful editing tools are the Preview button on the left hand side, which gives an even clearer picture of the finished questionnaire, and the Index button, which gives a summary listing of all questions, which is specially handy when creating branching scripts.

Hidden questions are displayed like this:

This includes the question name and its description.

Action questions are displayed like this:

This includes the question name and its Action. A View link opens up a box that shows the script details; when the box is open, the link turns into a Hide link that closes the box. This allows very quickly getting an idea of what an Action does without having to open the question for editing.

Next: Define a Question