Working with choices
Three question types have choices: choice, rank and matrix. Their options are edited in the Choices section of the question’s editor.
Adding choices
Type them in one at a time, or paste a list and add them in bulk. Drag to reorder — the order you set is the order respondents see, and the order they’re exported in.
You can also start from a preset: a ready-made list such as a standard agreement or frequency scale. Picking a preset replaces the current choices, so choose one before you start typing your own, not after.
What each choice holds
- Text — what the respondent reads.
- Information — optional, shown behind an ⓘ icon beside the choice. The place to put the clarification that would otherwise bloat the label.
- Score — points added to the response total when this choice is picked. Choice scores are totalled automatically; you don’t need a scoring rule for them. Totals are always collected whether or not you show them to respondents.
- Active — whether the choice is currently offered.
Retiring a choice instead of deleting it
Turning a choice inactive stops it being offered to new respondents while leaving it intact for everyone who already picked it. That’s almost always what you want mid-collection: deleting an option that people have chosen makes their answers harder to read back.
Same principle as the rest of the survey — see Editing a live survey.
“Other” answers
A choice question can offer an other option with a free-text box beside it. It’s a per-question setting rather than a choice you add. Use it sparingly: every “other” is a value you’ll be coding by hand later.
Writing good options
- Cover the ground. If a respondent can’t see themselves in any option, they pick the nearest wrong one and you never find out.
- Keep them mutually exclusive on a single-choice question, or switch it to multiple choice.
- Put “prefer not to say” in deliberately rather than leaving it to the required rule. A forced answer is worse data than a declined one.
- Order means something. Keep scales in their natural order, and keep it consistent across questions so respondents don’t have to re-read each one.