General options appear on the General tab of the Question Editor and include a question’s display type and prompt. The prompt is the text to which the participant is supposed to respond (e.g., “What is your name?”). A question’s prompt will appear in a participant’s browser exactly as it is typed in the prompt field. Note, however, that HTML tags within a prompt will be ignored when the question is displayed.
When a display type is selected, an example of the display type appears in the yellow box to the right of the Display Type list.
Display types include the following:
- Select One – Use this display type for a participant to be allowed to select only one item from a list of available responses. The Select One display type can be either a poplist (sometimes called a pop-up menu) or a group of radio buttons. The Display Properties tab includes an option called “Select-one style” where the user can choose whether to display the question as a poplist, radio group, or likert scale.
- Check all that apply – Use this display for participants to be able to select more than one item from a list of options. This type is displayed as a set of checkboxes.
- Text Field – Use this item for participants to type short responses. Text field responses can be up to 255 characters in length. Use the Commentary display type if the question requires longer answers.
- Yes/No – Use this display type if the question requires a simple yes/no or true/false response. Yes/No questions are displayed as a single checkbox.
- Commentary – Use this item for participants to type responses that may be longer than 255 characters. Commentary responses can be several million characters in length.
If editing a multilingual survey, and the translation tools are enabled, there will be a list of languages at the bottom of the Question Editor. Choose the language to be edited from the list, and the prompt for that language will appear, if the question has been translated. The prompt may be edited, and the edits will apply to that translation of the prompt only.