Be consistent!

Consistency is critical in design. When you create a survey, make sure you maintain consistency in terms of navigation, page layouts, font, color choice, size, direction, phrasing, and language. As we discussed last week, online surveys rely on question wording and design. So make sure the design and content take equal importance in a survey.

How to deal with inconsistencies in a survey

• Group similar questions and logically arrange them with the help of page breaks and page titles. This helps your respondents stay focused.
  

• Use rich text editors and themes for formatting, and apply the same style across the survey.
  

• Avoid asking a lot of matrix questions; the respondents would lose focus on the questions and shift their attention to grids. As a result, their answers would tend to become patterns.
  

• Use words such as "less likely", "most likely", or something more specific to indicate a degree of preference on a scale instead of numbers.
  

• Make sure the scales are ordinal and placed in uniform directions across the survey. Don't place them with different directions (positive to negative in one, and then negative to positive in another). This could confuse your respondents.
  

• Never forget to check your survey for inconsistencies before publishing it.